NASA's Curiosity Rover captures ‘dust devil’ swirling on Mars; Watch video

In its search for traces of life on Red Planet, NASA Mars rover Curiosity captured a ‘dust devil’ swirling through Gale Crater. Curiosity photographed dust devil on August 9, after it spotted a faint dust of seemingly dangerous vortices whirling between dark and light slopes on a 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers)  site located on equator of Mars. US ncy released video on its official Instagram handle with a caption, “Our Curiosity rover spots a “dust devil” on Mars,” adding, “Right w, it's “windy season” in region where our Curiosity rover is operating.”

According to NASA, Mars is a dynamic planet, due to its unique atmospheric interaction with surface. And on August 9, NASA’s rover captured a spinning, columnar vortex of wind kwn as a "dust devil" moving across its 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,” NASA informed, adding, “ 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.” In raw mochrome rover foot, typically faint dust plume of a dry whirlwind can be seen arising on Maritan surface in area that is previously documented by NASA as potentially habitable with a network of lake-and-stream system.

[NASA's MRO craft captured this lucky view a whirling dust devil on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona]

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Claire Newman, an atmospheric scientist at Arizona-based company Aeolis Research, wrote in an update on mission that on Mars, “it’s almost summer on Gale Crater, a period of strong surface heating that lasts from early spring through mid-summer.” 

"Stronger surface heating produces stronger convection and convective vortices, which consist of fast winds whipping around low pressure cores," Newman added in release. 

[Rover captured a towering dust devil casts a serpentine shadow over Martian surface in this stunning, late springtime im of  Mars' Amazonis Planitia.]

Investigating clays, sulfates, and minerals

dust plume was witnessed near Mount Sharp, Gale’s central peak, which rises 3 miles (5 kilometers) above crater floor. region is located between Mars’ flat rrn lowlands and heavily cratered sourn hemisphere, according to NASA. Rover’s assigned task after its landing on floor of Gale Crater was to investigate clays, sulfates, and minerals that form in presence of water. However, rover spotted something unique and never before seen on stretch.  Internet users called foot as “surreal”. A user pointed out that “Water can be produced where re is air. This is super.”

"re are several HiRise ims of tracks left behind by dust devils, but it is rare to catch one in motion," wrote MRO team member Sharon Wilson said in an update.

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