Dust Devils on Mars Electrified, Study Suggests

Whirling dust devils on Mars probably generate high-voltage electric fields and associated magnetic fields and would need to be considered by future human explorers, scientists said Tuesday.

The conclusion is based on studies in Arizona and Nevada, where researchers raced across the deserts to catch dust devils and drive right through them. They found unexpectedly large electric fields exceeding 4,000 volts per meter

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On Mars, dust devils can be five times wider and soar 5 miles (8 kilometers), much higher than even full-blown tornadoes on Earth.
On both planets, dust devils form when the ground heats up during the day, warming the air immediately above the surface. Pockets of warm air rise and interfere with each other, sometimes causing one pocket or another to begin a swirling motion.


"If Martian dust devils are highly electrified, as our research suggests, they might give rise to increased discharging or arcing in the low-pressure Martian atmosphere, increased dust adhesion to space suits and equipment, and interference with radio communications," said William Farrell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/dust_devils_040420.html

Now THERE'S a band name for ya'.

whenever objects of low surface conductivity are subjected to turbidity they tend to build up electrostatic charge. The likelihood of discharge is low however because of the low atmospheric pressure and consequent minimal probability of cumulative ionizing impacts of charged particles in the static field. Without large numbers of charged particles moving in the electric field there is no source of magnetic field.