A Martian Dust Devil Passes
Explanation:
What goes there across the plains of Mars?
A
dust devil.
For the first time,
definitive movies of the famous spinning
dust towers have been created from
ground level.
The robot rover Spirit has now imaged several
dust devils
from its hillside perch just within the past two months.
Each image in the
above sequence
was taken about 20 seconds apart.
Inspection of the digitally resized images show the passing
dust devil
raising Martian dust so thick that it casts a
shadow.
The new dust devil movies have been made possible
by a new hybrid interaction system where the
robot Spirit on
Mars
takes many images and
humans on Earth inspect thumbnails
and decide which full resolution images to send back.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
