It seems like at this point so many problems have been listed regarding mars that I am not 100% sure why anyone would want to go, but while we're at it, studies have suggested that the common dust devils around Mars are potentially electrified, creating high-voltage electric fields-- further complicating potential human travel to the red planet.
Researchers came to this conclusion after chasing tornadoes across deserts in Arizona and Nevada. They unsuspectingly came across fields carrying 4,000 volts of energy per meter. On Mars dust devils can be much larger than tornadoes seen on Earth, only creating a bigger danger. "Dust particles in a devil become electrified because they rub against one another. It's like shuffling your feet across the carpet, the researchers explained. But they figured the positive and negative particles would be evenly mixed in a dust devil, keeping the overall electrical charge in balance."
Instead, it turns out smaller and lighter particles picked up negative charges and were lifted higher in the funnel, while the heavier/positive particles were sent down. This seperation created a situation similar to a battery.
While we cannot yet guess what it will actually be like on Mars, but as our knowledge grows it is interesting how many problems (and hopefully solutions) come up.
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