Weatherwatch: Curiosity Rover sends back weather reports from Mars

NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars - 2012
NASA's Curiosity Rover is sending back weather information from Mars. Photograph: Rex Features/NASA

Weatherwatch: Curiosity Rover sends back weather reports from Mars

Nasa's Curiosity Rover is not only checking whether Mars could have supported life, but is also sending back weather information from Gale crater.

There is no rain, but plenty of wind. At the centre of the crater is Aeolis Mons, named for the island of winds in Greek mythology. Mars is one of the windiest locations known, with giant dust storms engulfing the entire planet for days on end. The wind also sends dust devils 30 metres in diameter and 800 metres high churning across the desert.

Typical wind speeds on Mars are 50mph to 70mph, and the maximum is over 100mph. On Earth this would be hurricane force, but Curiosity should not suffer too much of a buffeting. The atmosphere is a hundred times less dense than Earth's and the wind strength is correspondingly reduced. The airborne dust is so fine it has been compared to cigarette smoke. Unfortunately one of Curiosity's two wind speed sensors was damaged during landing. However, the other is working well and data is published online. Researchers say the only problem would be with measuring a wind blowing vertically.

Gale crater is not so called because of the winds, but is named after Walter Gale, an Australian banker by day and astronomer by night whose 1892 sketches of the Red Planet were highly regarded. Gale joked about hoping for signals from Mars; now weather reports are coming back from the very places he observed.