Dust has always been a problem when exploring Mars. <\/p>
The thin Martian atmosphere kicks up the planet\u2019s fine dust, which then settles on solar panels. This steadily reduces the sunlight reaching the panels, until power drops too low for the spacecraft to function.<\/p>\n
The Spirit and Opportunity rovers avoided this fate as the wind on Mars<\/a> periodically blew the dust away. Not every spacecraft is so lucky. NASA\u2019s most recent victim was the InSight lander, which lost contact with Earth on 15 December 2022 after four years on the surface.<\/p>\n So why not just include a \u2018windscreen wiper\u2019 to brush away the dust?\u00a0One of the biggest issues is weight. The mass you can send to another planet is a limit set by the power of your rocket. Every gram counts and adding a\u00a0cleaning system would mean leaving something else out. So far, the trade-off hasn\u2019t been worth it.<\/p>\n Some missions have used existing hardware to try cleaning the panels instead. Using the solar panels\u2019 positioning motors to shake the dust loose have met with little success, but InSight<\/a> did manage to clear some dust using its robotic arm. Counterintuitively, it poured more sand onto the panels. This ran straight off,\u00a0but not before\u00a0sending up\u00a0a bunch of dust already on the spacecraft. The procedure was done during the windiest part of the day, so the lifted material was blown away.<\/p>\n Perseverance<\/a> and Curiosity bypassed the problem entirely by using radio thermal generators (RTGs)\u00a0rather than solar panels. These convert the heat given off by\u00a0a\u00a0radioactive material, in this case plutonium, into electricity. However, plutonium is hazardous,\u00a0and\u00a0more dense than lead. As this makes the craft heavy, plutonium and other radioactive materials\u00a0are only used for power-hungry missions like the two rovers.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked by: Neil Gibbs, San Diego<\/strong><\/p>\n To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don\u2019t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Dust has always been a problem when exploring Mars. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":28579,"template":"","categories":[30],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/nasas-dirty-dilemma-how-martian-dust-is-crippling-space-probes.jpg",1200,512,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/nasas-dirty-dilemma-how-martian-dust-is-crippling-space-probes-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/nasas-dirty-dilemma-how-martian-dust-is-crippling-space-probes-300x128.jpg",300,128,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/nasas-dirty-dilemma-how-martian-dust-is-crippling-space-probes-768x328.jpg",768,328,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/nasas-dirty-dilemma-how-martian-dust-is-crippling-space-probes-1024x437.jpg",800,341,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/nasas-dirty-dilemma-how-martian-dust-is-crippling-space-probes.jpg",1200,512,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/06\/nasas-dirty-dilemma-how-martian-dust-is-crippling-space-probes.jpg",1200,512,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Dust has always been a problem when exploring Mars.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/28578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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