Dust Devils on Mars Seen by NASA’s Curiosity Rover

NASA’s Mars probe Curiosity has discovered a dust devil swirling in the dry red planet landscape. On Aug. 9, Curiosity captured the spectral features of dancing along the borders of the dark and light slopes in the 96-mile (about 154 kilometers) wide Gale Crater on Mars and took a photo of the dust devil.

According to the Curiosity team members, it is not surprising that this dry whirlwind seen on Earth has recently appeared in the crater. On Wednesday (Aug. 26), atmospheric scientist Claire Newman at Aeolis Research, a company in Arizona, wrote in a mission update: “The Gale Crater is almost summer, and it’s entering a period of intense surface heating from early spring to mid-summer. (Gale is located about 4.5 degrees south of the equator on Mars.) Dust devils occur similarly on Earth and Mars and are best formed when the terrain is relatively flat and dry and when the surface is warmer than the air above it.

NASA’s Mars probe Curiosity captured the Dust Devil

NASA’s Mars probe Curiosity captured the Dust Devil orbiting the Gale crater in its search for signs of life on the red planet. Curio City, on Aug. 9, spotted a potentially dangerous light swirling between dark and light slopes in a 96-mile (about 154 kilometers) wide area on the Martian equator and photographed dust devils. The U.S. space agency, on its official Instagram steering wheel, released a video with the caption “Our Curiosity rover spots a “dust devil” on Mars, adding that the region where our Curiosity probe is now active is “windy season.”

According to NASA

According to NASA, Mars is a dynamic planet due to its unique interaction between the atmosphere and the surface. On Aug. 9, NASA’s spacecraft captured a swirl of rotating columnar wind called “dust devil” that travels on its surface.

” NASA reported, this dust Deville seems to pass through a small hill just above Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, where Curiosity is now located,” NASA reported.”Dust devils are about one-third to half a mile (half a mile to one kilometer) and are estimated to be about 16 feet (5 meters) wide.” In raw black and white rover footage, you can see the typical faint dust plume of dry whirlpools potentially occurring on the multilane surface in areas previously documented by NASA.