Movie Clip Shows Whirlwinds Carrying Dust on Mars

MARSDAILY

Clips consisting of a few frames of two different dust devils are available online at JPL. These were taken on April 15 and April 18, and capture more movement as seen from the surface than any previous imaging of martian dust devils.

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 22, 2005
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is taking movies of dust devils -- whirlwinds carrying dust -- scooting across a plain on Mars.

"This is the best look we've ever gotten of the wind effects on the martian surface as they are happening," said Dr. Mark Lemmon, a rover team member and atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, College Station.

Spirit, operated from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has been using its navigation camera to routinely check for dust devils. It began seeing dust devils last month in individual frames from the camera.

Lemmon said, "We're hoping to learn about how dust is kicked up into the atmosphere and how the wind is interacting with the surface. It's exciting that we now have a systematic way of capturing dust devils in movies rather than isolated still images."

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MARSDAILY

Spirit Heading To 'Home Plate'

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 09, 2006
Last week Spirit completed robotic-arm work on "El Dorado." The rover used all three of its spectrometers plus the microscopic imager for readings over the New Year's weekend.

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