资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Wind interacts with the surface of Mars to create the diverse landforms seen today. The morphology of wind streaks and related surface features has been used to interpret the winds on Mars in regions where actual wind measurement are lacking. Here we compare wind directions interpreted from bright wind streaks observed in orbitally-acquired images with winds measured at the surface by the InSight lander in Elysium Planitia. The distribution of streak orientations is trimodal, dominantly reflecting winds from the southeast. The distribution of winds measured by InSight was highly variable with time of day but was dominantly characterized by winds from the northwest. The lack of coincidence between the two suggests that wind only intermittently deposits dust on the surface. The persistence of the streak orientations over five Mars years demonstrates that saltation in the region, if occurring, is not sustained long enough to rework these dust depositional surfaces.