The American Space Agency (NASA) has recently released a video showing the Perseverance rover capturing a dust devil in motion on the Red Planet.
The footage of this fascinating phenomenon was recorded on August 30, 2023, marking the 899th day of the Perseverance mission on Mars. The dust devil appeared about 4 kilometers away from the rover. It moved from east to west at a speed of approximately 20 km/h, with an estimated width of 60 meters.
Expert Mark Lemmon from the Space Science Institute in Boulder stated: “We do not see the top of the dust devil, but its shadow gives a clear indication of its height.” According to him, the vertical shadow indicates that it is about 2 kilometers tall.
Mars dust devils form when warm air rises and mixes with columns of cooler air descending. They are most commonly seen during the spring and summer months on Mars.
However, the appearance of these dust devils at specific locations is unpredictable. The Perseverance rover and its companion Curiosity must continually monitor the surrounding environment, taking black-and-white images to transmit data back to Earth.
Dust devils are most commonly seen during the spring and summer months on Mars.
The mission of Perseverance is not just to capture fascinating phenomena on Mars. It also aims to delve deeper into the biological world in the universe, searching for signs of ancient microbial life, studying the geology and climate of the planet’s past. Additionally, it paves the way for future human exploration of Mars.
Notably, Perseverance’s first mission is to collect and store rocks and regolith on Mars for analysis.
Subsequent missions from NASA, in coordination with the European Space Agency (ESA), will collect these samples and return them to Earth.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by Caltech in California, is the facility overseeing the operations of the Perseverance rover.
