Mars shows himself again of his dramatic side: the perseverance of the NASA-Rover has made a rare atmospheric encounter on the red planet with so-called dust devils, ie eager storms, met: one was literally “devoured”.
As NASA announced, the video was made on January 25, 2024 on the western edge of the Jezero Crater, in a place that the team called “Witch Hazel Hill”.
Dust devil as wide as an airplane
The spectacular event was documented by a navigation camera on board the robbers. The largest of the two wind pants had a diameter of approximately 65 meters, while the smaller vertebrae were about 5 meters wide. There are even two Dust Devils in the background.
“Convective vertebrae – also known as Dust Devil – can be quite difficult,” says Mark Lemmon, scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “When two of these Dust Vortex meet, they can solve each other or the stronger vertebrae devour the weaker.”
Small devil with great importance
Dust devils stem from rising, rotating columns of warm air. This heats near the planet surface and rises up due to colder air masses. While air pushes on the floor and comes into rotation, it is sucked into the column and absorbs the speed – as well as dust. A visible dust swirling has been made.
According to Katie Stack Morgan, project scientist for the Rover Perseverance at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, these vertebrae play a central role in the Mars climate system:
“Dust devils are important because they offer references to atmospheric conditions – for example about wind direction and speed – and they are responsible for about half of the dust in the atmosphere of Mars.”
Observation with system – and part of the happiness
Since the landing in 2021, Persevere has already observed several of these mini-tornadoes, including on 27 September 2021, as a whole swarm of Dust Devils about the Jezero Crater. Fabric devils are not predictable, so perseverance regularly observes the environment from different directions.
If a vertebrae occurs more often at a certain time of the day or from a certain direction, the team focuses more specifically in this area – in the hope of filming further vertebrae.
What was the victorious Dust Devil in the video?
“If you feel sorry for the small vertebrae, it can be reassuring to know that even the larger one who probably disappeared a few minutes later,” said Mark Lemmon. “Dust devils on Mars usually don’t take longer than ten minutes.”
Source: Krone
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
