Flat farmland and 100-degree temperatures provide the perfect spawning grounds for dust devils, which form when hot air rises from the ground and is spun by the wind. A pair of dust devils rolled by the test site Tuesday afternoon before a team of scientists had finished plugging in the instruments in the truck, so John Marshal of NASA's Ames Research Center took matters into his own hands. Marshal measured the electrical field generated when dust particles slam against each other at high speeds, the same kind of field generated by static electricity. He said his meter surged from the normal reading of about 100 volts per meter of air to more than 5,000 volts. But even without electric charges, dust on Mars will still pose a major threat to future exploration of the planet, he said.
Dust is magnetic and ultra- fine, so it gets into everything.
Even with the most advanced methods, dust will make its way into the equipment and habitats of humans, especially given the amount of time humans will spend on Mars, Smith said. It will take about six months for a manned spacecraft to get to the Red Planet. They're going to do their best to clean off that dust with airlocks and such, but that stuff is going to get tracked right into the habitat. One of the instruments mounted on the truck will measure the chemistry of the dust clouds, said Aaron Zent, a NASA researcher. The laser pulses allow scientists to determine the size of the dust devil and track it.