On Mars, dust devils and winds reach speeds of up to 160 km/h and are therefore faster than previously assumed: This shows a study by an international research team led by the University of Bern. The researchers analyzed images taken by the Bernese Mars camera CaSSIS and the stereo camera HRSC with the help of machine learning. The study provides a valuable data basis for a better understanding of atmospheric dynamics, which is important for better climate models and future Mars missions.

 

Simulation results highlight how team composition shapes stress, health, performance, and cohesion in long-duration space missions, according to a study published October 8, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Iser Pena and Hao Chen of the Stevens Institute of Technology, U.S. In particular, team diversity in personality traits may contribute to greater resilience under extended isolation and operational load.

Combing through 20 years of images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft, scientists have tracked 1039 tornado-like whirlwinds to reveal how dust is lifted into the air and swept around Mars’s surface.

Published today in Science Advances, their findings – including that the strongest winds on Mars blow much faster than we thought – give us a much clearer picture of the Red Planet’s weather and climate.

And with these ‘dust devils’ collected into a single public catalogue, this research is just the beginning. Besides pure science, it will be useful for planning future missions, for example incorporating provisions for the irksome dust that settles on the solar panels of our robotic rovers.

An analysis of more than 1,000 Martian dust devils over two decades has revealed new details about the planet’s tumultuous atmospheric dust cycle. The work describes how near-surface horizontal winds – not just vertical ones – influence dust lifting and dust devil initiation, offering insights that could be useful for planetary exploration. Mars experiences whirling dust devils just like those seen on Earth. The planet’s dust cycle drives these events, producing vertical and horizontal winds that alter the surface weather and climate. By examining dust devil development, duration, and severity, scientists can work backwards to learn about the planet’s wind dynamics and anticipate dangers spacecraft might encounter. “[NASA’s] most recent Mars Exploration Program specifically calls out the need for a better understanding of the dynamics and interactions of Mars’ dusty surface and atmosphere in the context of sustainable, future exploration,” Valentin Bickel and colleagues note. Here, they evaluate longitudinal patterns of seasonal, global, and diurnal Martian dust devil migration, focusing on the less-understood impact of horizontal, near-surface winds. They applied deep learning to parse spacecraft imaging data of 1,039 dust devils that occurred from 2004 to 2024. Doing so enabled Bickel et al. to reconstruct the planet’s near-surface, straight-line wind patterns over two decades. They observed that global circulation models for Mars generally underestimated the planet’s actual wind forces, or shear stresses. In contrast to results from previous models, the researchers found that these forces frequently surpassed the strength threshold necessary to lift dust from the ground into the atmosphere. The team corroborated the results with additional thermophysical and atmospheric records, global weather maps, and the Mars Climate Database model. Overall, the work underscores the need to consider straight-line wind stresses in projections about dust activity in the lowermost part of the Martian atmosphere.

 

For reporters interested in the complex Martian atmosphere, a 2025 Science Advances study presented spacecraft images depicting puff pastry-esque layers in the Martian atmosphere: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu0859

New analyses of the largest impact crater on the moon reveal unexpected insights into its tumultuous past. They also suggest that once astronauts return to the moon, they will have access to a veritable gold mine of scientific clues that may help scientists solve some of the longstanding mysteries of how the moon came to be.

According to theory, massive red supergiant stars should cause most supernovae, yet they are rarely observed. New James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations indicate these supernovae likely can occur but are hidden in dust. Star’s dust was unusually carbon-rich, suggesting atypical chemical mixing during its death throes. Study marks first time JWST identified a supernova’s source star and first time supernova was imaged in mid-infrared wavelengths.