by MarkBour » Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:16 pm
neufer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 10, 2018 2:07 pm
- Opportunity got hit much harder than Curiosity:
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS)
<<This series of images, created with imagery processed by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) crew at Malin Space Science Systems, shows simulated views of the path of the ongoing epic dust storm event as it moves across the planet, darkening the Martian sky and blotting out the Sun from Opportunity’s view. The storm is depicted in rusty red swaths. Opportunity and the younger, larger, roving laboratory Curiosity are placed in their approximate locations on the map. You can see in this gif how the dust storm increased in size and moves right over Opportunity during the first half of June. The robot remains hunkered down in a kind of hibernation mode waiting out the storm.>>
Thanks for posting that illuminating gif, Art. When that sequence ends, at 2018.06.11, it is clear that the dust storm was still spreading. It had engulfed Opportunity, and was closing in on Curiosity. I hope to see a more complete sequence when the entire run of the storm has been mapped. The caption on today's APOD refers to it
now as a "winding down" dust storm, and many images have confirmed that. My first crude understanding of Mars' global dust storms is that they are more frequent around Mars perihelion, when it is being warmed more by the Sun. The relation is apparently not dirt simple, though. I read that Mars perihelion is in about a week, 2018.09.16 . But if the dust storm is now subsiding, it was
near perihelion, but obviously not strongest
at perihelion. I suppose the amount of dust aloft may not match the strongest winds in time, but that would be surprising, so I am suspecting that Mars' atmosphere has actually been calming down over the last 6 weeks or so (?)
From that sequence, it appears as though the dust began north of Opprtunity, just east of Chryse, then spread in all directions, but spread most rapidly eastward. When the sequence was almost over, it is interesting to see how it grew in the far south.
[quote=neufer post_id=285685 time=1536588433 user_id=124483]
[list][b][color=#FF0000]Opportunity got hit much harder than Curiosity:[/color][/b][/list]
[quote][float=left]http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/mer_updates/2018-08/20180908_2-Stormy-weather-path-gif-zurek-053181-06118_f840.gif[/float]
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS)
<<This series of images, created with imagery processed by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) crew at Malin Space Science Systems, shows simulated views of the path of the ongoing epic dust storm event as it moves across the planet, darkening the Martian sky and blotting out the Sun from Opportunity’s view. The storm is depicted in rusty red swaths. Opportunity and the younger, larger, roving laboratory Curiosity are placed in their approximate locations on the map. You can see in this gif how the dust storm increased in size and moves right over Opportunity during the first half of June. The robot remains hunkered down in a kind of hibernation mode waiting out the storm.>>[/quote]
[/quote]
Thanks for posting that illuminating gif, Art. When that sequence ends, at 2018.06.11, it is clear that the dust storm was still spreading. It had engulfed Opportunity, and was closing in on Curiosity. I hope to see a more complete sequence when the entire run of the storm has been mapped. The caption on today's APOD refers to it [i][b]now[/b][/i] as a "winding down" dust storm, and many images have confirmed that. My first crude understanding of Mars' global dust storms is that they are more frequent around Mars perihelion, when it is being warmed more by the Sun. The relation is apparently not dirt simple, though. I read that Mars perihelion is in about a week, 2018.09.16 . But if the dust storm is now subsiding, it was [i]near[/i] perihelion, but obviously not strongest [i][b]at[/b][/i] perihelion. I suppose the amount of dust aloft may not match the strongest winds in time, but that would be surprising, so I am suspecting that Mars' atmosphere has actually been calming down over the last 6 weeks or so (?)
From that sequence, it appears as though the dust began north of Opprtunity, just east of Chryse, then spread in all directions, but spread most rapidly eastward. When the sequence was almost over, it is interesting to see how it grew in the far south.