Gas flow within Martian soil: experiments on granular Knudsen compressors

Thermal creep efficiently transports gas through Martian soil. To quantify the Martian soil pump we carried out laboratory analog experiments with illuminated granular media at low ambient pressure. We used samples of 1 μm to 5 μm SiO 2 (quartz), basalt with a broad size distribution between 63 μm and 125 μm, and JSC-Mars 1A with a size fraction from 125 μm to 250 μm. The mean ambient pressure was varied between 50 Pa and 9000 Pa. Illumination was varied between 100 W / m 2 and 6700 W / m 2 . The experiments confirm strong directed gas flows within granular and dusty soil and local sub-soil pressure variations. We find that Martian soil pumps can be described with existing models of thermal creep for capillaries, using the average grain size and light flux related temperatures.