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| Titel |
Dust Devils and vortices at the Phoenix landing site on Mars |
| VerfasserIn |
H. P. Gunnlaugsson, M. D. Ellehøj, P. A. Taylor, J. Whiteway, M. T. Lemmon, L. K. Tamppari, L. Drube, C. Holstein-Rathlou, M. B. Madsen |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2009
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 11 (2009) |
| Datensatznummer |
250027980
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Near continuous measurements of pressure and temperature by the MET instrumentation on
the Phoenix Mars Lander [1] has been used to identify the passage of vertically oriented
vortex structures at the Phoenix landing site (126W, 68N) on Mars. Some of these vortices
reach horizontal wind speeds large enough for dust particles to be lifted off the surface and
into the vortex and thus become Dust Devils.
From a ground based sensor, on the Phoenix Mars Lander, this signature will be a distinct
pressure dip of the order of 20 seconds when the dust devil passes by. The temperature
correspondingly increases during the passage of the dust devil.
In this work we characterize the convective vortices and dust devils at the Phoenix
landing site from pressure signatures in the Phoenix MET pressure and temperature
data, and compare the results to similar results from Mars Pathfinder pressure data
[2]. Comparison of dust devil statistics with other data available allows will be
discussed.
[1] P. Taylor, M. Daly, H. P. Gunnlaugsson, A-M. Harri, C. Lange, Temperature,
Pressure and Wind instrumentation on Phoenix MET, J. Geophys. Res., 113 (2008)
E00A10.
[2] J. R. Murphy , S. Nelli, Geophys. Res. Lett. 29 (2002) 18-1-4 |
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