Live Dust Devil? Options

[azstrummer]

Man, this looks an awful lot like a dust devil in the distance. What do you think?

[djellison]

At LAST - they've actually GOT one

Nice find

Here - have a mars bar

Doug

[azstrummer]

Crunch

[slinted]

Heh, I was just starting a new topic for this one, but ya'll beat me to it.


A navcam from Spirit's Sol 421 shows a bright, conical feature rising from the plains west of the Columbia Hills. It appears to be in the same position from both L and R eyes. There is a bright strip on the ground extending north from its current position.
Here is a 2 frame animation comparing brightness enhanced left navcam images sol 421 to 420:
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/collections/S..._420_navcam.gif

Since it was afternoon, the sun is to the west, so this may be a camera effect from looking in the direction of the sun although it would have to be a very strangely shaped one to account for these features.

Sol 421 Navcam, left eye
Sol 421 Navcam, right eye
Sol 420 Navcam, left eye

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Something in thisone too?

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

it seems to extend in to the atmosphere:

[mhoward]

Is this one too? Taken just slightly earlier.

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/...90P0775L0M1.JPG
http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/...90P0775R0M1.JPG

In the anaglyph of the first one you can see it's out in the middle of the plain; if it's a camera trick it's a heck of a good one!

There have been some interesting shots of the sky recently that suggested to me at least that a lot of dust is getting kicked up. And of course we had our incident with the forward hazcams...

Edit: Sunspot beat me to it.

[djellison]

What we need is one to come OVER HERE.....HELLOOO....YES YOU....GOT SOME NICE DIRTY SOLAR ARRAYS FOR YOU

Likes buses - you wait 14 months then 2 come along at once - is it likely to be the same one photographed twice that far apart in only 80-something seconds? Theres a couple of km between the two locations, and MOC has often captured two or more devils in one image from orbit.


Doug

[Pando]

What we need is one to come OVER HERE.....HELLOOO....YES YOU....GOT SOME NICE DIRTY SOLAR ARRAYS FOR YOU

omg... Looks like the dust devil actually heard you ...
700+ W/Hr!!!

[djellison]

You're joking.

are you?

Actually - looking at the 'darkness' of the cells on those navcam images, I dont think you are!

Doug

[Pando]

You're joking.

are you?

Doug

No!

[djellison]

wooOOoooowoooOOoooowaooowooo AT THE CAR WASH......

I've just wrapped up the biggest chunk of a huge animation project at work which I've had to do on my own that's involved a LOT of late nights and the client loves it - then Spirit spots a Dust Devil. Then another one. THE gets a doubling in power budget

Today = good day.

Doug

[alan]

In rear view too?
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/re...90P1302R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/re...90P1302L0M1.JPG

[jamescanvin]

700+ W/Hr!!!

Fantastic, that has got to be the best news of the year so far!!

J

[tedstryk]

I hereby withdraw my prognosis that Spirit's days are numbered.

[slinted]

Amazing news!

[lyford]

You know I was going to add that the panels looked "blacker" in the pic that Sunspot posted, but I was getting ready to leave work, and after an hour commute, I log in at home and see this...

700 watts!?!?!?! Yeeeeeeeee haw!

I would gladly trade a few specks on the hazcams for a clean solar array, any sol.

It just keeps getting better...

[mhoward]

This is the best news in weeks. Go Spirit!

[imran]

What we need is one to come OVER HERE.....HELLOOO....YES YOU....GOT SOME NICE DIRTY SOLAR ARRAYS FOR YOU

omg... Looks like the dust devil actually heard you ...
700+ W/Hr!!!

Wow that's great news! Just wondering..where did you hear that from?

[Pando]

What we need is one to come OVER HERE.....HELLOOO....YES YOU....GOT SOME NICE DIRTY SOLAR ARRAYS FOR YOU

omg... Looks like the dust devil actually heard you ...
700+ W/Hr!!!

Wow that's great news! Just wondering..where did you hear that from?

A dust devil told me...

[erwan]

Probably solar array good news, dust devil and Pertinax post on Dirty lens are linked?

Pertinax 
Posted: Mar 10 2005, 01:21 PM
I don't know if this is related to the dust on the front hazcam or not, but thought it worth making a rare post! smile.gif

It looks like Spirit's tracks nearby have been quiet wind-scoured (in terms of what we've seen thus far anyway).

Before: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...00P1605L0M1.JPG

After: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...44P0775R0M1.JPG

BTW, maybe we see the ground effects of a strong gust on the left horizon side of these sol 420 Navcam images (left+right pictures, an horizontal white streak on the ground, not seen before) here):

[dvandorn]

What we need is one to come OVER HERE.....HELLOOO....YES YOU....GOT SOME NICE DIRTY SOLAR ARRAYS FOR YOU

omg... Looks like the dust devil actually heard you ...
700+ W/Hr!!!

I called it!

http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?showtop...findpost&p=6353

-the other Doug

[lyford]

I called it!

http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?showtop...findpost&p=6353

-the other Doug

Good on ya, Mate! Mars bars all around!

(Doug - we're going to need a marsbar smiley icon soon....)

[lyford]

Well, it does appear to have had an affect -

Compare Sol 330 (from the deck pan self portrait - grayscaled to make it clearer)


with today's navcam image



You can really see a difference, and even tell which direction the wind came from the dust "shadow" around what ever that square dealy-bob is...

[erwan]

Seems to be rather demonstrative, Lyford! You may also look on another Sol 407 Navcam image (2N162504460EFFA776P1875R0M1.JPG). What a radical dust whipoff!

[lyford]

Seems to be rather demonstrative, Lyford! You may also look on another Sol 407 Navcam image (2N162504460EFFA776P1875R0M1.JPG). What a radical dust whipoff!

You are right - this way there's no filter issue - same camera - et viola!

and

[Nix]

Yeah! That rear view one is a beauty too, and a big one I presume. Are we under attack? Revenge of the dust-devils...
time to make some stereo's on these...

[Pando]

That must have been quite a devil there, or was it actually a martian tornado? And now that Oppy is at the yellow brick road.... waitaminute, what movie was that anyway?

[Nix]

That one in the rear hazard camera looks like it's transporting quite some dust.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Nix]

Forget about the dust, it's an artifact of the enhancing, it's sunlight. There seems to be another one to the right, see original file.
Thanks guys for these finds, it is a great morning!
I used to track devils with MPF, we had some views back then, and some BIG devils on the horizon.

[dot.dk]

Wow this is the greatest ever news for a very long time!!

I hand out a Mars bar to everyone

[akuo]

Excellent news! This really makes my day :-)

I guess this makes it more likely that it is the dust devils/wind cleaning up Oppy also, and not necessarily all the rattling from roving.

[Bill Harris]

Great news! OTOH, I wonder what the long-term effect of the dust devils will be on the atmospheric opacity?

I imagine that dust devils might be less visible at Meridiani because of the desert pavement of the blueberries.

--Bill

[djellison]

The atmospheric opacity goes up and down like an excited puppy anyway. Regional and local dust-storms give it trends - but it jumps about from .8 to 1.5 over a period of sols as it is.

But - looking at the Navcam imagery - Spirit's obviously had a cleaning event much like opportunity - that that is BRILLIANT news.


Doug

[dot.dk]

This must be really bad news for all the tired scientists and engineers
Now Spirit is almost back to Sol 1 in terms of dust buildup. And Oppy has stayed at Sol 1 roughly throughout its mission

[Guest_Analyst_*]

Well, NASA can shut the rovers down when they are still working. I fear they will do (and did with Viking)

[djellison]

I think actually - that's highly unlikely. The Voyager/Ulysses funding is a totally seperate pot of cash to the Mars Program - and if nothing else - having two rovers on mars is an excellent way to train people for future missions w.r.t. planning, operations, communication, colaboration, long term planning and so forth - some excellent modes of practice are being put in place that will only benefit ( and save money ) future missions

They only shut down one of the viking landers iirc - and then only by accident The other just died.

FWIW - I think we'll find that the public outrage and turning functioning probes off will save Voyager, Ulysses - and the others.

Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I find it hard to believe they would shutdown the Voyager probes

[OWW]

At least the MERs are out of range to suffer the same fate as the unlucky Solwind satellite that became the target of brainless military types:

http://space.skyrocket.de/index_frame.htm?...dat/solwind.htm
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/m...aft/solwind.htm

[Guest_Analyst_*]

Doug, I really hope it will turn out your way. But I doubt. Btw. the DSN people train with Voyager.

[dot.dk]

Wonderful animation to make

[OWW]

How much of that is real versus different lighting conditions?

[tedstryk]

The Viking 1 lander died in a very sad way. A young controller sent an erant command shutting it down in 1982 - it may well have lived into the 1990s had this not happened.

[dot.dk]

Don't know how to find out the time a picture is taken, but looking at the two source images:

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/...44P0775R0M1.JPG
and
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/...76P1875R0M1.JPG

It looks about the same time of day to me

[tedstryk]

I question whether the whole Voyager threat is simply a ploy to keep their budget from being cut. Still, we should take no chances.

[arccos]

700W = great news indeed!!!

Boys, where did you get the info?

[TheChemist]

This is from a dust-devil simulation on earth, cropped from a Nasa report. Apologies but I can't find the original paper at the moment.


Edited to add the correct figure source [not a Nasa report, but] :

Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV (2004)
MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS: LABORATORY SIMULATIONS OF AEOLIAN INTERACTIONS
Lynn D. V. Neakrase, Ronald Greeley, and Daniel Foley
Arizona State University, Dept. of Geological Sciences, Box 871404, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1404

PDF link to article

Originally pointed by Bruce Moomaw several months ago on the MainlyMartian blog.

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[Pertinax]

Ahhhh... beat to the punch on the cleaning of Spirit's solar cells. Saw it yestererday and while on the way to check past sol's images I wound up chacing other rabbits (a analyst notebook data for a possible halo for Oppy's sol 312).

Great Find (on both the dust devils AND the cleaning of the cells), and Great News!!

-- Pertinax

[erwan]

[Nix]

[dot.dk]

That's hilarious

[Pando]

Somebody managed to snap the picture of two of those devils...



original credit to arccos who posted it here

[erwan]

Well, it seems that Martian's humor and atmospheric dust levels are closely linked...

[jaredGalen]

"700W = great news indeed!!!"

Has this been confirmed by anyone?

I'd rather not get my hopes up.

[dot.dk]

"700W = great news indeed!!!"

Has this been confirmed by anyone?

I'd rather not get my hopes up.

Pando knows people

[jaredGalen]

Pando knows people

Then so be it.

My hopes are officially UP, and with Ireland on their way to winning the grand slam in the Six Nations, I could not be happier.

This could certainly make them reevaluate their next move.
Will an unfavourable tilt be quite so bad now.
Will they go where previous power levels would have meant a propable death sentance?

Just curious

[Jeff7]

I thought the panels looked darker. I also looked at the rear hazcam images to see if the thing got much closer to the summit; the front hazcam images weren't much help to me in that respect - the tracks behind it are a lot tougher to see now. Looking at the Navcam images too - yeah, those tracks are definitely eroded a good bit.

Very good to hear that Spirit is back to normal power levels.



And what's this about cut funding for Voyager and other space probes? They damn well better not cut funding for any more operational probes. Hubble's already been handed a death sentence; they better not kill off any other working probes because we don't want to listen to them anymore. The Voyager probes are out in an area never before explored by any spacecraft (the Pioneer craft aren't transmitting anymore); and really, we invested a lot of time and money in building and launching these things. Run them until they won't do a damn thing anymore. Like the rovers - if their wheels seize up completely, fine, leave the cameras running - maybe update the software to allow for rapid image acquisition, and get some videos of some dust devils.

[mhoward]

Check it out. L256 available.

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/...90P2149L2M1.JPG

[mhoward]

Oh heck, I'll just post it. It's too good.

[akuo]

That's beautiful.

[lyford]

They missed a spot.

[MizarKey]

I think this is the path the dust devil took...

[OWW]

Sol 377:


Sol 422:


Notice the magnet to the right of the sundial. Most of the dust is now on the right side of the 'ring'!

[alan]

Some images of the ground

Before (sol 398)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P1312R0M1.JPG

After (sol 421)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...90P1212R0M1.JPG

[alan]

The dust devil cleaned many of the rocks too. Should be a good time to use the Mini-TES.

[jaredGalen]

Well, given the occasion I felt that it was worth trying to make one of these colour image jobbies just so I could look for myself at what happened.

Here's my first comby, I apologise to any image connoisseurs out there, perhaps it might be best to avert your eyes!! I'll leave it to the experts from now on I think. It's always nice to dabble though.

Who would have thought clumps of dirt could look so good on solar panels.
It's becoming quite the fashion statement on Mars it seems...

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[djellison]

Interesting thing if you look at this

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V07909002.html

Many of the dust devil tracks ( particularly one ENORMOUS one starting left edge of centre ) start at a crater - or perhaps the northern rim of a crater.

Maybe being in a slight wind 'shadow' allows the air pocket inside the crater to warm up faster in the morning, rise, draw air in down the crater walls and it cycles from there.

Perhaps this is why Opportunity got cleaned so well?

If you look closely - some devils start AT the columbia hills - perhaps a north facing slope playing the same roll as the crater - being a trigger point.

Any glider pilot will tell you - a sun-facing slope is often a good trigger for thermals

Doug

[MahFL]

I noticed a long time ago too that a lot of streaks started at a crater. I have glided before but just on a winch, not hill soaring.

[erwan]

I guess you are right, Doug, explaining Dust Devils in terms of topography. One may compare "Dust Devils alley" area from Themis image you linked with the strongly amplified MOLA datas for Spirit landing site linked below (each square 463m; each color: 20m elevation): most Dust Devils are likely linked with an elevated area extending between White Hill and Castril crater:

[erwan]

A few more explanation words: The (cream color) elevated area (given Eastward Gusev rim) is likely to be sooner sun heated on the early morning than neighbouring areas (blue or grey)....

[edstrick]

tedstryk commented:

"The Viking 1 lander died in a very sad way. A young controller sent an erant command shutting it down in 1982 - it may well have lived into the 1990s had this not happened."

To set the record straight. The Viking Landers were powered by Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, but their instantaneous power demands when they were *doing* anything were greater than the RTG's could supply. They had to draw on rechargable batteries when they were transmitting, recording data to the tape recorder, etc.

Also note that the Landers primary communications to Earth was by relay to the Viking Orbiters, and secondarily by direct uplink to Earth. Viking Orbiter 2 died of attitude control gas depletion after 2 years in Mars Orbit, while Viking Orbiter 1 lasted 4 years.

Viking Lander 2 died of battery failure just a few weeks before the loss of Orbiter 1. It would try to do *ANYTHING*, have a brownout, and go into a safemode. I believe they finally sent it a final shutdown command sequence. Lander 2 had both transmitters to Earth fail, and could only communicate through an Obiter, so it would have been silenced by the loss of the last Orbiter.

Viking 1 was put on a 1-transmission-per-week (direct to Earth) "eternal" mission and lasted 2 1/3 more years till it started to show signs of battery failure. They assembled an "impromptu" team to write battery conditioning software and uplinked a command sequence to the Lander. It was never heard from again. They believe the command sequence accidentally overwrote the code that predicted Earth's location in the sky for the antenna pointing. They attempted to uplink corrected code, but either the Lander never received the corrections, or the batteries had in fact failed.

Viking started the sad example of repeat crisises regarding termination of a live mission. After the first "Extended" mission, there was a further "Extended" Mission, (I think), then a "Completion" mission, after which things wouild be shut down. That was averted and Orbiter 1 did a "Survey" Mission of very simple large area contiguous mapping. Finally, with the orbiter's loss, Lander 1 was put on it's "Eternal" (don't recall if there was an official name or not) mission. They were only able to listen sporadically to it's automatic broadcasts: Voyagers and some other missions were doing their things and there was essentially no $ for the effort.

[edstrick]

I took the pre and post cleaning images posted earlier today, and combined them into a pseudo-color image: the pre-dusting frame as red, the post-dusting frame as blue, and their average as green.

Sun-angles are close but not identical, and the images are not in perfect registration, but the result is interesting.

Areas with the most dust removed (actually the greatest reflectance change) are red. You can trace the changes even into shadowed areas. Some of the misc. metal hardware in the upper left corner shows little if any real change (other than mis-registration fringes). Dust tails behind pieces of hardware appear grayer, as there's been little brightness change.

A steplike edge of metal hardware in the center of the left edge of the image may have accumulated dust, or that may be due to the change in illumination.

[edstrick]

Uh... It would help if I added the pic before hitting "add reply"...

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[Guest_RGClark_*]

it seems to extend in to the atmosphere:

Thanks for that image, Sunspot. If it's that big maybe we should call it a tornado rather than a dust devil.
Anyone want to estimate its width at the base?


Bob Clark

[djellison]

Half the size of lahontan crater? Call it 30ft across maybe?

Doug

[remcook]

I must say I'm amazed! this is cool on so many levels

[tedstryk]

Anyhow, it was an errant command that ended Viking 1. What you are referring to is the Viking Continuation Mission..

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

it seems to extend in to the atmosphere:

Thanks for that image, Sunspot. If it's that big maybe we should call it a tornado rather than a dust devil.
Anyone want to estimate its width at the base?


Bob Clark

I couldn't find any obvious sign of dust extending up into the sky in this navcam image though:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...90P0775L0M1.JPG

[dilo]

Hi Sunspot, also I tried to see atmospheric signatures from both NavCam portraits of the Dust Devils (I'm pretty sure they must be different dust devils, even if appeared almost at the same time). Here the results after strong enhancement of sky portion (with false colors):

[erwan]

Sunspot, Dilo: thanks for your images.
It's probably less convincing, but i wonder if another DD is not seen on the ground, near the horizon, in Navcam images from Sol 420 (2N163660040EFFA844P0775L0M1.JPG, and the right one). Here is linked a montage for this horizon area, from Sols 419, 420, 421:

[fredk]

Pando (or anyone), any idea how quickly the power level jumped on Spirit? How often is it sampled? If we could determine that it happened in minutes or seconds, that'd perhaps suggest a (very flukey?) dust devil crossing the rover. If it took longer, perhaps there was a period of time with strong winds or gusts.

I sure hope they decide to do some serious devil monitoring imaging now, like they tried way back when out on the plains. That is one video clip I could find room for on my shrinking harddrive!

[alan]

The dust devils have been mentioned on msnbc.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/

"The best way to see it is to flip between images for a "now you see it, now you don't" effect. Daniel Crotty has created just such an animated image, http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/collections/S..._420_navcam.gif
and after watching the picture flip back and forth for a few seconds, you should be able to see the dust devil in the distance."

"But at least so far, these devils are not fearsome: In fact, it appears that winds may be clearing off the dust-laden solar panels on Spirit as well as on Opportunity, on the other side of the planet. That is giving both rovers a welcome energy boost, Oberg reports, based on posts by experts on Mars-interest Internet forums."

[lyford]

"That is giving both rovers a welcome energy boost, Oberg reports, based on posts by experts on Mars-interest Internet forums."

Now you've done it, Pando!
Will MSNBC do a bit on cow-tipping as well?

And kudos to slinted for getting his work mentioned, too!

And azstrummer for starting the topic....

More mars bars, please!

[dvandorn]

The dust devils have been mentioned on msnbc.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/

"The best way to see it is to flip between images for a "now you see it, now you don't" effect. Daniel Crotty has created just such an animated image, http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/collections/S..._420_navcam.gif
and after watching the picture flip back and forth for a few seconds, you should be able to see the dust devil in the distance."

"But at least so far, these devils are not fearsome: In fact, it appears that winds may be clearing off the dust-laden solar panels on Spirit as well as on Opportunity, on the other side of the planet. That is giving both rovers a welcome energy boost, Oberg reports, based on posts by experts on Mars-interest Internet forums."

Um, yeah -- that's sort of my fault. I posted the news about Spirit getting a cleaning, and about the guys here spotting what appeared to be dust devils, to the Usenet newsgroups alt.sci.planetary and sci.space.history, where I also tend to hang out. Several hours later, I found an e-mail in my mailbox from Jim Oberg (who haunts sci.space.history, partially because it gives him a lot of good leads for his MSNBC news articles and columns), asking me for any details and official confirmations I might have about it.

I did give Jim O. the URL to this forum, and told him that while we could see the effects of wind in a lot of images from Sol 421 (including degradation of rover tracks and the cleaning of rover surfaces), I really didn't have an official confirmation of Spirit's vastly improved power situation. Come to think of it, I think we've just heard that statement from Doug and Pando -- I'd be curious as to where they got it, and when it was discovered... *hint, hint*... )

I rather specifically didn't post the URL to this forum on Usenet -- not that this isn't a publically accessible forum, I just didn't want to spur a flood of Usenet crazies into this nice, pleasant forum... *smile*... If there's one thing we do NOT need here, it's a flood of people insisting that every single rock in the MER images is actually a fossil, living plant or animal, and/or evidence of a third gunman hiding on the grassy knoll... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

[dvandorn]

As an addendum, I did find it sort of amusing that one person on alt.sci.planetary challenged my news, asking me something along the lines of "How can you be seeing images from Sol 421 when the latest raw images at the MER website are for Sol 420?" I don't think I even had to tell him, someone else pointed him to the Exploratorium site.

-the other Doug

[lyford]

I rather specifically didn't post the URL to this forum on Usenet -- not that this isn't a publically accessible forum, I just didn't want to spur a flood of Usenet crazies into this nice, pleasant forum... *smile*...  If there's one thing we do NOT need here, it's a flood of people insisting that every single rock in the MER images is actually a fossil, living plant or animal, and/or evidence of a third gunman hiding on the grassy knoll... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

Thanks - dvandorn -for preventing information pollution.

When I get tired of fighting the phantom phossil phinders, I come here to relax in the cool waters of reasonable discourse and creative intelligence.

I must say that this board has a very high signal to noise ratio compared to most on the net, newsgroups especially.

Now can I interest you in an herbal enhancement or a lower home mortgage?

[erwan]

Frankly posts, Dvandorn. I hope, as you, that Mer.Rlproject will not be polluted with "conspiracy" or "fossil" posts! My own pleasure with the forum is that every threads worth the visit...

[imran]

Spirit Gets A Dust Devil Once-Over

Engineers report that the rover’s power reading quickly shot up to almost as high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago.

700+ seems right to me

[djellison]

I rather specifically didn't post the URL to this forum on Usenet -- not that this isn't a publically accessible forum, I just didn't want to spur a flood of Usenet crazies into this nice, pleasant forum... *smile*...  If there's one thing we do NOT need here, it's a flood of people insisting that every single rock in the MER images is actually a fossil, living plant or animal, and/or evidence of a third gunman hiding on the grassy knoll... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

It's the reason I made this place. Sick of the conspiracist crap that exists EVERYwhere else. The blue sky stuff, the fossil stuff, anything involving Hoagland. I can not and will not tollerate that junk I've had to delete ONE post in a year of this place existing - I think we just set a 'tone' that works When NASA screw up, when they make mistakes - I'll say so. But suggesting they're hiding or lying about things on mars is beyond moronic - and anyone who signs up to that mind set has never been welcome here. Somehow - it's just worked - this place is more than I ever dreamed of and I'm amazed the way the 'bug' has caught on.

How easy/hard it will be to maintain that tone when I start the 'big' project (anyone with PHP/SQL/PHP Fusion/Invision Board experience who wants to help, let me know. Also - any space news-hounds who want to chat about ideas etc - ditto - doug@rlproject.com. Cant give you money - can give you your own ..@unmannedspaceflight.com email address )

Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I always assumed the bright round features seen towards the base of the hills were some kind of eroded impact feature...:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...44P0775L0M1.JPG

But I think they may be the starting points for the formation of dust devils now...

[GregM]

.

[deglr6328]

Hello everybody. This is my first post here since I've just foud your site! It's great that there exists a place like this where the pseudoscience kooks aren't allowed to infiltrate with thier nonsense. I hope to contribute to what I see is already a fascinating and insightful amateur discussion!

[mike]

That 'Marsquatch' thing does look interesting, but then I realized it's been processed with some Photoshop filter or another ("Sharpen"?). You might as well be reprocessing film negatives to show fairies dancing around little girls..

[alan]

Back on thread.
Here is a before an after shot of the sundial.



Those images are useful for something after all

[erwan]

Below is linked a page from J.T ALU website, with fantastic images and movie of Earthian DD... I'm a little seasick, but what a movie: Jeff. T. Alu DD webpage

[SFJCody]

Slashdot picks up the story:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid...&tid=226&tid=14

[slinted]

Thanks for the sundial images Alan. I think its very interesting to note the amount of material moved around (not only on the dial, but in the background as well) as early as Sol 416/417. The cleaning apparantly isn't just an 'event' that occured on Sol 421, along with the spotted dust devil. This time of year must just be a windy time at Gusev.

[Pando]

Alan, the Sol 417 image of the sundial above is quite fascinating, especially the dust-free band around the sphere. Some nice science can be learned from that simple image! One can easily see wind coming from lower left on the sundial, and blowing away the dust from the sphere, affecting the areas only where windspeed is the highest...

[Pando]

I did give Jim O. the URL to this forum, and told him that while we could see the effects of wind in a lot of images from Sol 421 (including degradation of rover tracks and the cleaning of rover surfaces),

Oh great... now I really have to watch what I say, or it'll wind up on the evening news...

I rather specifically didn't post the URL to this forum on Usenet -- not that this isn't a publically accessible forum, I just didn't want to spur a flood of Usenet crazies into this nice, pleasant forum...

Looks like someone else did post it though...

But in all honesty, this forum is just about tops -- actually, several research scientists from the rover team are members of this forum and have contributed here, and that says a lot. Kudos to Doug for his excellent moderation skills

[alan]

Pando, I noticed that the sundial looks even redder on 418. Then on sol 420 the navcan images of the sky looked cloudier.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...8P1584L0M1.HTML
Did Spirit go through a dust storm starting on 417 (when the forward hazcam was messed up) that peaked on 420?