Phoenix Lander Photographs Martian Whirlwinds

**TNT Bot** · Sep 14, 2008, 02:17am

Toren Altair recommends a story up on the Space Fellowship site that begins "NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has photographed several dust devils dancing across the arctic plain this week and sensed a dip in air pressure as one passed near the lander. The Surface Stereo Imager... caught a dust devil in action west of the lander in four frames shot about 50 seconds apart from each other. 'It was a surprise to have a dust devil so visible that it stood [out] with just the normal processing we do,' said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, lead scientist for the stereo camera. 'Once we saw a couple that way, we did some additional processing and found there are dust devils in 12 of the images.'"

Sep 14, 2008, 02:17am	#1 (permalink) Phoenix Lander Photographs Martian Whirlwinds
TNT Bot Elite Member Posts: 5,000 Karma:	Toren Altair recommends a story up on the Space Fellowship site that begins "NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has photographed several dust devils dancing across the arctic plain this week and sensed a dip in air pressure as one passed near the lander. The Surface Stereo Imager... caught a dust devil in action west of the lander in four frames shot about 50 seconds apart from each other. 'It was a surprise to have a dust devil so visible that it stood [out] with just the normal processing we do,' said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, lead scientist for the stereo camera. 'Once we saw a couple that way, we did some additional processing and found there are dust devils in 12 of the images.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. More...

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search