The InSight mission has operated on the surface of Mars for nearly two Earth years, returning detections of the first marsquakes. The lander also deployed a meteorological instrument package and cameras to monitor local surface activity. These instruments have detected small-scale vortices, some of which may be dust devils. Howver, although our analysis shows that InSight encountered more than 900 vortices and collected more than 1000 images of the Martian surface, no active dust devils were imaged. Surveying the available imagery, we placed upper limits on what fraction of vortices carry dust (i.e., how many are bona fide dust devils) and estimate threshold wind speeds for dust lifting. Comparing vortex encounters and parameters with advective wind speeds, we find evidence that high wind speeds at InSight may have suppressed the formation of dust devils, explaining the lack of imaged dust devils.

Research Publications

• Jackson et al. (2020). “Inferring Vortex and Dust Devil Statistics from InSight.” Planetary Science Journal.