Rover Shoots Twirling Dust Devil On Mars
A dust devil swishing over Martian surfaces was captured by NASA's Opportunity rover on April 1. This has been said to be among the "best dust devils ever recorded" in the Red Planet's Meridiani Planum area.
Experts shot the scene from the edge of Mars' 14-mile-wide Endeavour Crater. The image had the rover's tracks in the foreground and a Martian twister in the distance. The extra-terrestrial whirlwinds happen very often in the Red Planet and capturing the scene was special.
Dust devils on Mars are created from spinning columns of air carrying dust and dirt. Being driven by solar heating and commonly seen on clear, sunny days, they do not lead to damage like true tornadoes on Earth.
NASA's Opportunity rover landed on Mars in January 2004 only briefly after its twin, Spirit, came on the scene. The robots are part of a surface mission that is trying to identify the water that once flowed here. The initial three-month sojourn was extended for long, which has made the rover find a lot of evidence here.
An earlier dust devil for more than half a mile was captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, over the Red Planet's Amazonis Planitia region in 2012. Spirit photographed one called the Gusev Crater in 2005, but dust devils have not been captured by Opportunity earlier.
It is also interesting that experts expect to find underlying clays here, which could show more about Mars' mysterious wet past. Clays minerals are created through chemical processes with ancient surface water.
