Amazing Rover Cleaners of Mars!!!

HA! You thought I was talking about the Secret Astronauts that clean and repair those two Rovers huh?

Well not this time... Not YET anyway This time its..

Dust Devils on Mars

Dune Buggy Tracks on Mars? or did the Rovers go Haywire?



Gullies and Streaks on Crater wall Kaiser
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-308, 18 April 2002

MSSS Image # E12-00113
www.msss.com...

Martian Dust Devil Trails



NASA APOD

A Dust Devil Crater on Mars



NASA APOD

Mod Edit: Image Hotlinking – Please Review This Link.




[edit on 22/9/2008 by Mirthful Me]

Spirit Captures Dust Devil



See it live here..




MGS Captures Dust Devil

Dust devil in process of making the lines



NASA APOD

Mod Edit: Image Hotlinking – Please Review This Link.


[edit on 22/9/2008 by Mirthful Me]

Amazing pictures, how do you have the patience to search the entire website and get the images

Anyway the rovers were lucky not to get caught in the path of one of the dust storms.

Dust Devils on Mars Animations

Dust Devil in Gusev Crater, Sol 445



Dust Devil Near Spirit, Sol 446



Several Dust Devils in Gusev Crater, Sol 461



Dust Devils in Gusev Crater, Sol 463



Large Dust Devil on Horizon, Sol 468

pretty cool Zorgon

Ive seen some wild dust devils in the Utah desert.....

Look very much like the Mars ones......hmmmmm SO MUCH so that I wonder just exactly how close to Earths atmosphere that Mars is in reality?

You see any suspicious looking machines roving around near your place? I mean the Tonapah test site IS close by

Seems I miss place a few pages of data to tie the Rovers into the title... so will have to redo them

AH Found them wrong folder

This was the situation as of January 3, 2005 and the power levels of Spirit were dropping because of the same layer of dust on the solar panels



Before and After a Cleaning Event on Spirit March 03, 2005



These two images from 10 days apart show that dust was removed from the panoramic camera's calibration target on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. Spirit's panoramic camera took the picture on the left on the rover's 416th martian day, or sol, (March 5, 2005) and took the picture on the right on sol 426 (March 15, 2005). During the time in-between, other evidence of dust-lifting winds were a jump in power output by Spirit's solar arrays on sol 420 from removal of some accumulated dust, and sighting of two dust devils in sol 421 images from Spirit.

Convenient huh?

The Amazing Self Cleaning Sundial

Sol-662



Sol-941



Sol-1120



Sol-1163



Sol 1170



Sol-1183



Sol-1293



marsrovers.nasa.gov...


[edit on 30-8-2008 by zorgon]

Try this experiment to complement your research zorgon: Find a dry, dusty surface.
Blow on it
Harder.
Use a hairdryer.

Come back with the results
Convenient huh?

reply to post by debunky


That is the thing for me.

Mars is supposed to have a very tenuous atmosphere. One comprised of CO2, but tenuous nonetheless.

So, where do you get the molecules to generate enough wind to make the hairdryer experiment work?

And how is it able to suspend all of that dust in the air? I mean, this dust is comprised of a LOT of iron oxide...not exactly the lightest of elements.

reply to post by zorgon


What are the methods by which a Dust Devil is formed and are those methods any different on Mars than Earth? Are they thermodynamic in nature or do the dunes create swirling winds that result in Dust Devils? Both perhaps?

Interested to know more. ..

Are the Rovers covered in some type of anti-static coating that may help with the removal of dust? Should they be and would this help? What if the Rovers emitted an anti-static charge through their shell when a Dust Devil approached? Would that help remove dust better?

Just wondering if there's a way the rovers could be made more immuned to dust in future missions... if NASA decide to use them again. Perhaps a little cleaning arm that periodically wipes majority of the crap off the solar panels with a blade and a small air jet?

IRM

Originally posted by InfaRedMan

Are the Rovers covered in some type of anti-static coating that may help with the removal of dust?

No actually the exact opposite as far as the sundials go. The material is a special temp resistant plastic that is very porous. I was looking for where I put the file on that or I would have posted it below

Remind me tomorrow if I don't find it...

Just wondering if there's a way the rovers could be made more immuned to dust in future missions... if NASA decide to use them again. Perhaps a little cleaning arm that periodically wipes majority of the crap off the solar panels with a blade and a small air jet?

Yes the same article has a section on CLEAR gold (very thing coating) that is supposed to work... but its not on these two

I have more to add on that but I have been working to many threads

Need Sleeeppzzzzzz z zzzzzzz

good night you gentle giant.......

The capture of the dust devil up and close is pretty darn cool, I like it. I'm curious how much if any damage to the optics or other bits of machinery on the rover would occur, if a sizable dust devil cruised over it. I wonder if they even considered it.