EGU23-6062
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6062
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Vortices and Dust Devils at Jezero crater after one year of measurements with MEDA on Mars 2020

Ricardo Hueso1, Claire Newman2, Teresa del Río-Gaztelurrutia1, Munguira Aiser1, Agustín Sánchez-Lavega1, Daniel Toledo3, Mark Lemmon4, Germán Martínez5, Ralph Lorenz6, Manuel de la Torre-Juarez7, Jose Antonio Rodríguez-Manfredi8, Jorge Pla-García8, Naomi Murdoch9, and Baptiste Chide10
Ricardo Hueso et al.
  • 1Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Escuela de Ingenieria de Bilbao, Física Aplicada I, Bilbao, Spain (ricardo.hueso@ehu.es)
  • 2Aeolis Research, Chandler, AZ, USA
  • 3Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Madrid, Spain
  • 4Space Science Institute, College Station, TX, USA
  • 5Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX, USA
  • 6Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA
  • 7Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, USA
  • 8Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC), Madrid, Spain
  • 9Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
  • 10Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA

After one year of surface operations at Jezero, the MEDA meteorological sensors have captured the signals produced by the close approach of hundreds of vortices and dust devils over different seasons and terrains. Here we update findings on the vortex and Dust Devils published in Hueso et al. (JGR: Planets, 2023). That work analyzed MEDA data from spring to early autumn identifying vortices as pressure drops and later characterizing them from the ensemble of MEDA measurements. In this updated analysis we show that, in winter, declining surface temperatures and smaller vertical gradients result in a wane of vortex activity. This decreased activity affects more the frequency of intense vortices (Δp >1.5 Pa) without showing a stiff decay in the total number of vortices (Δp>0.5 Pa). In this contribution we concentrate on the specific aspects of the thermodynamics of the vortices from temperature measurements obtained by MEDA that characterize the vertical thermal gradient at the time of the vortex passage. In addition, when vortices approach the rover closely in a favorable geometry (coming from the front of the vortex) we measure the increased temperatures inside the vortex. We also explore the increased nighttime vortex activity found on some sols, when pressure drops equivalent to those created by daytime vortices appear in the early morning before sunrise, with clusters of nighttime activity in winter and early spring.

How to cite: Hueso, R., Newman, C., del Río-Gaztelurrutia, T., Aiser, M., Sánchez-Lavega, A., Toledo, D., Lemmon, M., Martínez, G., Lorenz, R., de la Torre-Juarez, M., Rodríguez-Manfredi, J. A., Pla-García, J., Murdoch, N., and Chide, B.: Vortices and Dust Devils at Jezero crater after one year of measurements with MEDA on Mars 2020, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6062, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6062, 2023.