Wind erosion on Mars and other small terrestrial planets

Maximilian Kruss; Grzegorz Musiolik; Tunahan Demirci; Gerhard Wurm; Jens Teiser

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113438

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arXiv · 1911.01692

Wind erosion on Mars and other small terrestrial planets

Maximilian Kruss·Grzegorz Musiolik·Tunahan Demirci·Gerhard Wurm·Jens Teiser

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Abstract

We carried out wind tunnel experiments on parabolic flights with 100 $\mu$m Mojave Mars simulant sand. The experiments result in shear stress thresholds and erosion rates for varying g-levels at 600 Pa pressure. Our data confirm former results on JSC Mars 1A simulant where the threshold shear stress is lower under Martian gravity than extrapolated from earlier ground-based studies which fits observations of Martian sand activity. The data are consistent with a model by Shao and Lu (2000) and can also be applied to other small terrestrial (exo)-planets with low pressure atmospheres.

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Maximilian Kruss, Grzegorz Musiolik, Tunahan Demirci, Gerhard Wurm, Jens Teiser. 2019-11-05. Wind erosion on Mars and other small terrestrial planets. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113438

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