Extended Data Fig. 6: Pressure drops as observed by MEDA.

Pressure drops on MEDA data. (a) Daily distribution of pressure drops identified using the algorithm described in¹⁴. (b) Selection of events with at least a pressure drop of 0.5 Pa and a pressure curve compatible with a vortex after visualization of each individual event. (c) Selection of events in (b) that also have a simultaneous drop in the light measured by the RDS Top7 photodiode with a drop of at least 0.5%. Histograms have been corrected from sampling effects. The error bars represent the standard deviation obtained in Monte Carlo simulations that reproduce the number of events detected per hour, using a fixed probability equal to the total number of events divided by the total number of hours of observations. The central value represents the mean number of events detected per hour. (d-h) Examples of a variety of pressure drops including: (d) weak vortices typical of the early morning; (e) night-time pressure drops coincident with increases in temperature and driven by thermal pulses from the RTG when the wind flows from the back of the rover to the Remote Sensing Mast (wind data not shown); (f) the most dusty event captured in the first 250 sols, also one of the most intense and longest; (g) long and noisy pressure drops typically found at noon and suggestive of the passage of the boundaries of convective cells; (h) long vortex just after sunset. Further information on events like (f) and (g) is given in²³.