A Martian dust devil can be seen consuming a smaller one in a series of images taken by a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Dust devils are formed by rising and rotating columns of warm air.
Air near the planet’s surface becomes heated by contact with the warmer ground and rises through the denser, cooler air above.
As other air moves along the surface to take the place of the rising warmer air, it begins to rotate.
When the incoming air rises into the column, it picks up speed like a spinning ice skater bringing their arms closer to their body.
The air rushing in also picks up dust, and a dust devil is born.
“Dust devils play a significant role in Martian weather patterns,” said Perseverance project scientist Dr. Katie Stack Morgan, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Dust devil study is important because these phenomena indicate atmospheric conditions, such as prevailing wind directions and speed, and are responsible for about half the dust in the Martian atmosphere.”
NASA’s Viking orbiters, in the 1970s, were the first spacecraft to photograph Martian dust devils.
Two decades later, the agency’s Pathfinder mission was the first to image one from the surface and even detected a dust devil passing over the lander.
Twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity managed to capture their fair share of dusty whirlwinds.
Curiosity, which is exploring a location called Mount Sharp in Gale crater on the opposite side of Mars as Perseverance, sees them as well.
Since landing in 2021, Perseverance has imaged whirlwinds on many occasions, including one on September 27, 2021, where a swarm of dust devils danced across the floor of Jezero crater and the rover used its SuperCam microphone to record the first sounds of a Martian dust devil.
Three dust devils can be seen in this image taken at the rim of Jezero Crater by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on January 25, 2025. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI.
When Perseverance snapped new images from about 1 km (0.6 miles) away, the larger dust devil was approximately 65 m (210 feet) wide, while the smaller, trailing dust devil was roughly 5 m (16 feet) wide.
Two other dust devils can also be seen in the background at left and center.
Perseverance recorded the scene on January 25, 2025 as it explored the western rim of Mars’ Jezero crater.
“Convective vortices — aka dust devils — can be rather fiendish,” said Perseverance scientist Dr. Mark Lemmon, a researcher at the Space Science Institute.
“These mini-twisters wander the surface of Mars, picking up dust as they go and lowering the visibility in their immediate area.”
“If two dust devils happen upon each other, they can either obliterate one another or merge, with the stronger one consuming the weaker.”
