Whirlwinds on Mars, From the Ground

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."

Comments

For the hardcore:

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

"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?

Re:For the hardcore:

[Quiet_Desperation]

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.

Windsock

[Ohreally_factor]

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?

Re:Just thought of one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Overnight? While parked and sleeping?