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Whirlwinds on Mars, From the Ground

Posted by timothy on from the close-up dept.

Neil Halelamien writes "Back in 1999, satellite images were photographed of 5-mile-high whirlwinds streaking across the surface of Mars. A couple of months ago the Spirit rover got a close up view of whirlwind tracks, and this past week photographed a whirlwind in action (animation). It's thought that these dust devils may be responsible for the mystery power boost to the rovers' solar cells. Last year the rovers also spotted clouds and frost."

9 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Animation by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, it won't tell us anything about how common they are until they snag a picture of another one :)

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. For the hardcore: by hot_Karls_bad_cavern · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Now we're assuming they're cleaning, but all we can really say is that overnight the solar panels produced between 2 and 5 percent additional power immediately,'' he said. "We're surmising that for some reason dust is being removed from the solar panel and that's increasing the efficiency of the sunlight being converted to electricity."

    Any hardcore space-geeks care to propose any other explanation?

    Seriously, i'm just wondering what else might explain this, because enough moving atmosphere on Mars to clean the panels is very interesting to me. Other possibilities anyone?

    1. Re:For the hardcore: by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Motion of the rovers? I would imagine the lower moisture levels (if any) would make the dust there less sticky. I'd be curious to know if the rovers went through any serious inclines just bfore the power boost. Or if there was any unusually extensie activity of the probe arm and/or drill.

    2. Re:For the hardcore: by ckemp.org · · Score: 3, Interesting

      One thing confuses me, too: when the wind picks up on Mars, it turns into a dust storm, which I'm assuming dumps dust on the solar panels. Why would the whirlwind not pick up dust as well and deposit it on the panels? The twister in the picture seems relatively clear, consisting the red dust of the planet.

    3. Re:For the hardcore: by sydres · · Score: 3, Interesting

      perhaps it has something to do with static charges maybe the rover comes into contact with a bit of ionized particles wich drains the neutralizes the static charge on the rover

  3. Windsock by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will the next batch of rovers be equipped with windsocks, to measure the direction of the wind?

    And what do you call those spinning things to measure airspeed? The ones with four arms with little hemispheric "cups" that catch the wind. KnowwhatImeanVerne?

    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  4. Re:pre-emptive strike against all the teraformers. by lasindi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For a long time, I've believed that for Humanity to survive, we *MUST* have colonies on more than just Earth. We have the technology to kill everything on this planet in minutes, and it takes a mistake by one person to start that chain of events. Maybe through our own greed and industrialization, we've already set the earth on a fatal spiral through pollution. There are also other events that can happen, which are on more of a sci-fi scale. What if the sun goes super nova? What if a giant asteroid crashes into the earth?

    I'm all for spreading colonies, but your last two examples are a little more realistic than "sci-fi." We know that the sun's going to die; it'll take 4.5 billion years, but it will definitely happen. And a large asteroid will almost certainly strike the Earth. One killed the dinosaurs, and that was only 65 million years ago (a blink of an eye in the history of the Earth).

    lasindi

    --
    I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
  5. Re:Just thought of one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Overnight? While parked and sleeping?

  6. Gee, thanks a lot plagarist by ahecht · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why anyone would go to the trouble of digging up my http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=98777& cid=8427936year old post on dust devils and then insert Star Wars spoilers into it is completely beyond me. Bonus points for remembering my post, but several thousand negative points for the plagarism and spoilers.