From the ever-enticing and bewildering Martian world, here comes another video of the certainly known phenomenon of ‘Dust Devils’. The US-based space agency NASA shared a video on Instagram on September 13 showcasing the formation of seemingly dangerous whirlwinds.
The agency said its ‘Curiosity rover’ on August 9 captured the plumes of spinning columnar vortex of wind called “Dust Devils”. It also apprised that it was 16 feet (5 metres) wide and 164 feet (50 meters) tall while it was almost one-third to half a mile away from the rover. Meanwhile, it attributed to the prevailing windy season in the region for such formations.
Currently, curiosity’s location is on Mount Sharp, a peak within Gale crater where it recorded this occurrence and had left the netizens in inquisitive awe.
Such swirling columns of dust vary in size and can be as colossal as being 20km tall which was witnessed in March 2012 and in few instances it may be as wide as 50 metres and 650 metres tall, images of which, were published by the University of Arizona.
NASAOur Curiosity rover spots a “dust devil” on Mars 💨 Mars is often a very dynamic place, due to its atmosphere and how it interacts with the surface. Right now, it's the “windy season” in the region where our Curiosity rover is operating. On Aug. 9, one of the rover's navigation cameras captured the frames in this animation showing a spinning, columnar vortex of wind - also known as a "dust devil" - moving across the landscape. This dust devil appears to be passing through small hills just above Curiosity's present location on Mount Sharp, a peak within Gale Crater. The dust devil is approximately one-third to a half-mile (half-a-kilometer to a kilometer) away, and estimated to be about 16 feet (5 meters) wide. The dust plume disappears past the top of the frame, so an exact height can't be known, but it's estimated to be at least 164 feet (50 meters) tall. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI #Mars #Dust #NASA #Winds #SolarSystem
In October 2019, NASA’s Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped the massive whirlwind through its camera HiRISE which was built by the university in 2006.
In its entirety, it may pose an impediment to the plans of human establishment on Mars, as during the whirlwind, the dust particle may rub against each other leading to the emanation of the electric field in the air due to the extremely dry climate of the planet.
How do these ‘Dust devils’ get formed?
These whirlwind formations can again be attributed to the extremely dry and high temperatures of the red planet. Due to the heat, the surface gets heated up making the ground below hotter than the air above it. As a consequence of it, less dense air on the ground rises, further pushing the cooler air above while the comparatively colder air pushes the hot air down. This phenomenon leads to the vertical circulation of the air and with the direction of the wind it then moves horizontally. This causal effect finally produces the dust devil.
