What is the wind? Wind is actually the movement of the atmosphere. Mars has an atmosphere, mainly composed of carbon dioxide and methane, which is similar to the earth's atmosphere. Due to the gravity of celestial bodies, it is mostly concentrated near the surface. The atmospheric molecules themselves have been moving, mainly thermal movement, which makes the atmospheric molecules evenly distributed in the atmosphere except gravity, but sunlight will make the atmosphere unevenly heated.
Because there are mountains and canyons on the surface of Mars, the uneven surface heating in different areas at the same latitude will have different heating effects on the atmosphere above, and the atmosphere will easily expand when heated, thus forming different atmospheric densities. The high-pressure atmosphere will flow to the low-pressure atmosphere, and the uniform distribution of the atmosphere will be restored as much as possible, so that the relative flow forms the wind force. If there is a large-scale uneven heating phenomenon, it will form a strong wind with a long duration. Last year, a sandstorm on Mars blew over half of Mars, and the rolled-up dust even once blocked the observation of Mars by the Mars orbiter mission.
The gale on Mars is mainly due to the low atmospheric density and gravity. When gravity is small, gas molecules gather weakly to the surface, so the friction between the atmosphere is small, the friction between the atmosphere and the surface is small, and the relative velocity between air masses with different pressures in the atmosphere is slow. Coupled with the small gravity, the wind can easily roll up the fine dust on the surface and form a huge sandstorm.
However, due to these characteristics, the storms on Mars only look huge and the atmospheric density is very small. Although the wind is very fast, there are very few gas molecules hitting the object per unit time, which makes it difficult to break the object. Curiosity and Opportunity of the United States both encountered storms on Mars, but even the antenna and solar panels were not blown up. Storms on Mars are much more violent than those on Earth only in terms of wind speed. However, due to the thin atmosphere, the friction of gas on objects is small and its destructive power is limited. Due to the small gravity of Mars, all objects are light in weight and may still be rolled up by the wind.
After the "Insight" landed on Mars last year, its scientific instruments captured the sound of the Martian wind, which sounded a little different from the earth wind. However, there are still some unsolved mysteries about the Martian wind, and it is still difficult for scientists to determine why the Martian storm that swept through most parts of Mars for several months last year lasted for so long. In addition, scientists have also found that the atmosphere of Mars seems to be leaking all the time. In a few years, Mars may really have no atmosphere, so there will be no wind.