1. Systematic catalog of Martian convective vortices observed by InSight
- Author
-
Keisuke Onodera, Kiwamu Nishida, Taichi Kawamura, Naomi Murdoch, Mélanie Drilleau, Ryoji Otsuka, Ralph D. Lorenz, Anna Catherine Horleston, Rudolf Widmer-Schnidrig, Martin Schimmel, Sebastien Rodriguez, Sebastián Carrasco, Satoshi Tanaka, Clement Perrin, Philippe Lognonné, Aymeric Spiga, Donald Banfield, Mark Paul Panning, and William Bruce Banerdt
- Abstract
Convective vortices (whirlwinds) and dust devils (dust-loaded vortices) are one of the most common phenomena on Mars, observable on a daily basis. They reflect the local thermodynamical structure of the atmosphere and are the driving force of the dust cycle. Additionally, they cause an elastic ground deformation, which is useful for retrieving the subsurface rigidity. Therefore, investigating Martian convective vortices with the right instrumentation can lead to a better understanding of the Martian atmospheric structures as well as the subsurface physical properties. In this study, we quantitatively characterized the convective vortices detected by NASA’s InSight mission (~13,000 events) using both meteorological (e.g., pressure, wind speed, temperature) and seismic data. The evaluated parameters, such as the signal-to-noise ratio, event duration, asymmetricity of pressure drop profiles, and cross-correlation coefficient between seismic and pressure signals, are compiled as a catalog. To demonstrate how our catalog can contribute to scientific investigations, we show two analysis results about (i) asymmetrical features seen in the vortex-related pressure drops and (ii) atmospheric-ground interaction to retrieve the subsurface physical properties.
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF