Dust devil on Mars spotted ‘eating’ another

By Dean Murray

Scientists say they have spotted a dust devil "eating" another on Mars.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured the otherworldly scene of several Red Planet mini-twisters spinning on the rim of Jezero Crater.

The space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Thursday, April 3: "The smaller dust devil’s demise was captured during an imaging experiment conducted by Perseverance’s science team to better understand the forces at play in the Martian atmosphere."

Mark Lemmon, a Perseverance scientist at the Space Science Institute, said: "Convective vortices — aka dust devils — can be rather fiendish.

"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."

The six-wheeled explorer used a navigation camera to take the images from about 0.6 miles (1km) away. The larger dust devil was approximately 210 feet (65 meters) wide, while the smaller, trailing dust devil was roughly 16 feet (5 meters) wide. Two other dust devils can also be seen in the background at left and center.

Perseverance recorded the scene on 25 January as it explored the western rim of Jezero Crater at a location called “Witch Hazel Hill.”