2023-10-05 06:00:04
An impressive atmospheric phenomenon has been filmed on Mars by NASA’s Perseverance rover. This dust tornado, or “dust devil”, was five times taller than the Empire State Building.
Screenshot of a video (Video brings together all the techniques, technology, allowing the ‘recording as well as the…) recently published showing a dust devil on Mars.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
On August 30, on its 899th Martian day, the rover spotted this dust tornado about 4 kilometers away . The video, lasting 84 seconds, was shared online by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). on September 29. The tornado was moving at approximately 19 km/h and had a width of approximately 61 meters. Its maximum visible height was 118 meters, but its true height remains unknown.
Mark Lemmon, planetary scientist at the Institute of Space Science at Boulder, Colorado, and member of the Perseverance scientific team, explains that the shadow projected by the dust devil gives a good indication (An indication (from the Latin indicare: to indicate) is advice or recommendation, written…) of its height. According to estimates, this tornado could reach a height of 2 km.
Dust devils form when cells of rising warm air meet columns of descending cold air. On Earth (Earth is the third planet in the Solar System in order of distance…), they are particularly common in dry and dusty regions like Arizona. According to the National Weather Service, they generally range in size from 10 to 300 feet wide and 500 to 1,000 feet high.
Unlike terrestrial tornadoes, which are limited in height by clouds, nothing prevents a Martian dust devil from reaching dizzying heights. A study published in 2018 in the journal Icarus estimates that there could be at least one dust devil per square kilometer on Mars every day, or approximately 145 million per day.
Artistic depiction of what a dust devil on Mars might look like up close.
Credit: NASA
Due to their impact on the Martian environment, the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers are constantly on the lookout for these phenomena. Perseverance has already observed dozens of dust devils, and in 2021, it even recorded the sound of a dust devil passing directly overhead.
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