NASA | JPL-Caltech | MSL Curiosity | 2017 Feb 27
[c][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lfJ0c7WQ8[/youtube]Dust Devils On Mars Seen by NASA's Curiosity RoverOn Mars, wind rules. Wind has been shaping the Red Planet's landscapes for billions of years and continues to do so today. Studies using both a NASA orbiter and a rover reveal its effects on scales grand to tiny on the strangely structured landscapes within Gale Crater.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/TAMU[/c][hr][/hr]
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, on the lower slope of Mount Sharp -- a layered mountain inside the crater -- has begun a second campaign of investigating active sand dunes on the mountain's northwestern flank. The rover also has been observing whirlwinds carrying dust and checking how far the wind moves grains of sand in a single day's time.
Gale Crater observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have confirmed long-term patterns and rates of wind erosion that help explain the oddity of having a layered mountain in the middle of an impact crater. ...
The combined observations show that wind patterns in the crater today differ from when winds from the north removed the material that once filled the space between Mount Sharp and the crater rim. Now, Mount Sharp itself has become a major factor in determining local wind directions. Wind shaped the mountain; now the mountain shapes the wind. ...
Observations of an Aeolian Landscape: From Surface to Orbit in Gale Crater - Mackenzie Day & Gary Kocurek
- Icarus 280:37 (2016 Dec) DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.042
