Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Fantastic Picture!

"Dust Devil Weather?" A speculation
Tom Brosz — (archived)

Since it's obvious that that particular distant dust devil seen in the photo did not actually run over Spirit, it seems to me that Mars might have "gusty" periods of general high winds that do things like blow off solar panels and also raise dust devils. These squalls seem to be rare, or the panels would be blown off more frequently.

As I remember, Opportunity got it's "car wash" while it was still down in the crater. It would have been very interesting to have some shots of the plains at that particular time to see if there was a sudden wave of dust devils.

Is there any evidence from orbital shots of dust devils or their tracks to indicate that the dust devils appear in groups at infrequent periods?

Is this a good time to check out Spirit's recent tracks to see what might have changed? Did Opportunity's inspection of old tracks indicate that an unusual amount of wind had occured while the rover was in the crater?

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