Dust Devils - CERTIFIED













Spirit

References

First Season:
Greeley, R., P.L. Whelley, R.E. Arvidson, N.A. Cabrol, D.J. Foley, B.J. Franklin, P.G. Geisler, M.P. Golombek, R.O. Kuzmin, G.A. Landis, M.T. Lemmon, L.D.V. Neakrase, S.W. Squyres, and S.D. Thompson,. Active dust devils in Gusev Crater, Mars: Observations from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. J. Geophys. Res., 111, E12S09, doi:10.1029/2006JE002743, 2006.

3 Seasons:
Greeley, R., D.A. Waller, N.A. Cabrol, G.A. Landis, M.T. Lemmon, L.D.V. Neakrase, M. Pendleton-Hoffer, S.D. Thompson, P.L. Whelley, Gusev Crater, Mars:Observations of three dust devil seasons, J. Geophys. Res., 115, E00F02, doi:10.1029/2010JE003608, 2010.

Opportunity

Opportunity didn't capture any dust devils for the first several years. In 2014, after considerable processing of the images, several dust devils were identified. An explanation for the lack of sightings could be that Meridiani is so flat that Opportunity hasn't had a good vantage to see them. The field-of-view provided projections of the dust devils against the sky instead of local surroundings. This would have reduced the contrast and made detections difficult. Also, Meridiani doesn't seem to produce many or there is less dust coverage on the surface so the dust devils would be sediment starved as well - making it hard to lift enough material to see them. The region covered in the last part of the mission may be more dusty.