800Whrs+ Staying Up Late ideas |
800Whrs+ Staying Up Late ideas |
Jun 6 2009, 07:04 AM
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#1
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
With Spirit producing an annoyingly large amount of power given her current predicament, the time may well have come to re-open the Gusev astronomy society. Anyone have any dusk / nightime observation ideas?
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Oct 2 2009, 03:33 PM
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#2
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Martian Photographer Group: Members Posts: 353 Joined: 3-March 05 Member No.: 183 |
Yes, the Sun plays a big role in dust devils. Orbiter images have shown that globally, dust devil season fallows the sub-Solar latitude around. Dust devils are seen far from those latitudes, for instance in the far northern summer. But there, the Sun never sets; and at least the Phoenix-observed dust devils were much weaker (looking) than their MER counterparts. Back at the Spirit site, dust devils seem confined to 10 am - 4 pm even in the height of summer--and even when trying to control for the observation bias that responds to the same conditions that favor dust devils (solar powered, best to operate when it is warm enough to not need heaters). I imagine the diurnal effect to be quite important, since you need a big temperature gradient just above the ground to get dust devils from a process anything like on Earth. And for the other side of the coin, mini-TES and all models have shown the boundary layer to be super-stable at night.
There were attempts to look for lightning in some night images. They were hampered by a lack of good predictions--could Pancam even see lightning? So, a non-detection is meaningless. The best idea I've heard for seeing it is looking down at the opening for Ma-adim Valles, relying on cooling + gravity to produce winds that stir things up in the jumbled up terrain. Doesn't work now, but there were times... |
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