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Winds on Mars can
 both help and hurt spacecraft.

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So we're getting really creative
 in how to study winds on

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the surface of Mars
 over a large region. 

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We're here at NASA's Jet
 Propulsion Laboratory

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in the Space 

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Flight Operations Facility,
 also known as the Dark Room.

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This is where engineers
 send commands and receive data

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from JPL missions,
 including NASA's Mars

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Reconnaissance Orbiter. 

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Now, detailed images from
 the orbiter are helping

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scientists better understand
 Martian winds.

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Leslie Tamppari is MRO's deputy
 project scientist.

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Leslie, what are we seeing
 in these images?

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So what you can see
 here are dark patches

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on the surface of the ice
 near the south polar region,

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and they're created by gas jets
 that come from under that ice,

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up through cracks and deliver
 that dust out onto the ice.

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And the wind will carry that
 dust and lay it on the surface

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forming these bands. 

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And what we can do with this
 information is 

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we can look at the directions
 and the sizes

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and we can try to understand
 what the wind field is doing.

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And I understand that volunteers
 played a large role

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in this research. Yes, they did.

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We have taken about 75,000
 images

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over all of Mars with our MRO
 HiRISE camera.

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We used citizen scientists,
 80,000 volunteers

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to map these fans and map
 their directions and sizes.

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Why is it important to study
 wind direction on Mars?

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Some of our landers and rovers
 have had wind measurements,

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but only in a few locations
 at a few different times.

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But winds are very important
 for understanding 

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today's climate on Mars, 

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but also for trying
 to understand 

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how the climate
 was different in the past. 

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We also have huge dust storms
 that occur on Mars sometimes,

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but we don't understand 

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why some storms become global
 and some don't.

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So we're trying to understand
 the wind field

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to try to put all these pieces 

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together, to understand
 Mars better. 

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And how does that information
 help protect NASA's spacecraft?

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Right. 

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It's very important
 for not only the spacecraft, 

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but probably future
 human exploration as well,

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because dust,
 it can be dangerous to hardware

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For example,
 on the Perseverance rover,

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we are fortunate
 enough to have a wind sensor

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and we're measuring dust devils
 and a couple of these dust

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devils and wind
 events were so large 

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they picked up 

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not only dust but bigger
 particles, sand sized particles

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And in fact,
 some of the wind sensors 

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were damaged
 on the Perseverance rover. 

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In other locations,
 we seen hardly any dust devils.

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For example, the InSight lander
 has solar panels.

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The solar panels are 

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completely covered with dust,
 and so the power is waning.

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And we'd really like to see
 some dust devils coming by

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so that they could clean up
 those solar panels 

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and provide InSight
 with some more power. 

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So learning about the winds
 and the different environments

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and how they change across
 Mars will really help us plan

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not only for the conditions
 for today's spacecraft there,

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but also plan
 better for the future. 

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Thank you, Leslie. 

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To get the latest updates,
 follow at NASA,

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JPL and at NASA's
 Mars on social media.

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Or take a deeper dive
 on the mission websites at Mars

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NASA. gov.