[X] My Assistant

[rlorenz]

Evidence of the diurnal pressure cycle in the radiation detector data, and the suggestion of dust devil encounters in the meteorology package (REMS) data.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?rele...elease_2012-361

Suggests 'over 20' events with one or more in-situ signatures of dust devil encounters (e.g. pressure drop, wind direction change etc.)
In 12 weeks that means only ~0.25 events per day, which is pretty low compared with Phoenix and Pathfinder
(more like 1-3 / day, depending on event threshold e.g. see http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rlorenz/dustde...ssuredrops.pdf) but we'll need to wait and see this published properly to understand what thresholds were used and what correction factors for observation duty cycle need to be applied.

[serpens]

Since the comparison is cruise to surface intensity, does anyone know if there is any residual magnetic field loop in the vicinity of Gale that would provide a localised magnetosphere effect? If so then would atmospheric pressure changes affect the level of local ionization and hence deflection?