[X] My Assistant

[slinted]

Pando : Latest: There are indications that there is a possible dust storm developing. The power levels have dropped quite dramatically at around Sol 330 for Opportunity and is somewhat worrisome. At Gusev things are trending similarly although it's a Sol or so later. This is getting interesting as it may even mean a global dust storm

This seems to be deserving of its own topic, going off of Pando's post in the heatshield thread.

Unfortunetly, the TES mainpage doesn't have daily dust maps anymore, and the latest bolometer images are from Dec 21:

The TES spectrometer is currently being used intermittently. At this time we're no longer producing daily images or movies of 15 micron atmospheric temperature or dust opacity. The TES bolometer is still being used full-time, and we will continue to update the daytime and nighttime temperature movies.

I was looking at the rear haz from Sol 331, wondering what sort of clouds might be responsible, but a dust storm might make more sense.



This post has been edited by slinted: Dec 30 2004, 09:15 AM

[djellison]

while we know, that horizontal surfaces should build up dust much more than vertical ones.

Really? The air on mars may be thin - but it's there, and has wind - and the dust it carries is quite 'clingy' - and imho, it is the side of things that should get dustier first as the dust doesnt 'fall' out the sky, it drifts with the air flow. Infact, you could tell the prevailing wind at Gusev by the side of the sundial the dust stuck to after the first dozen days on the lander If the horez. surfaces should be dustier than the sides of surfaces - then how can you explain the rocks on the ground at gusev - many have a dusty upwind side and a less dusty downwind side. The same is true of pathfinder - infact Yogi is a prime example - v.dusty on the left - much darker on the right. You can see it on the earliest pictures of the black mast - dust up one side much faster than it gathers on the top.

Put it this way - when its raining, you windows get wet as WELL as the floor, and in a blizzard, the snow hits your windows and melts a lot quicker than it lands on the floor.

The colours demonstrated in those images are not exagerated - and imho, instead of being sadened by the state of Spirit - it's grounds to celebrate and rejoice in the fact that DESPITE all that dust, the damn thing's still working And imagine how long Opportuinty would have to spend at Meridiani to get that dirty Those images say to me - look - despite all this, they still work, so you can expect a whole lot more to come yet

Doug

PS - to celebrate, the wheel emoticon now rotates