Dust Devil Tracks
Many areas on Mars, including the Arcadia quadrangle, experience the passage of giant dust devils. A thin coating of fine bright dust covers most of the Martian surface. When a dust devil goes by it blows away the coating and exposes the underlying dark surface. Dust devils have been seen from the ground and from orbit. They have even blown dust from the solar panels of the two Rovers on Mars, thereby greatly extending their lives. The twin Rovers were designed to last for 3 months, instead they have lasted more than six years. The first Rover, Spirit, was last heard from in March 2010. Opportunity Rover is still exploring the Red Planet, after more than eight years. The pattern of the tracks have been shown to change every few months. The image below from HiRISE shows some dust devil tracks in the shape of X's. You may need to click on the image for a larger view to see the tracks clearly.
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Tantalus Fossae, as seen by HiRISE. Click on image to see dust devil tracks.
Read more about this topic: Arcadia Quadrangle
Famous quotes containing the words dust, devil and/or tracks:
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And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
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—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,—that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,—who is invariably the devil,—and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,—who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Truth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.”
—René Daumal (1908–1944)