Live Dust Devil? Options

[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...