Investigation of Martian Dust Devils

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Dust devils are dust-raising vortices, which occur typically in the afternoon, when the ground has warmed up the overlying air and which now begins to ascend. Small sand particels can be taken up by this ascending air and make the vortices visible. This is a well-known phenomenon on Earth. The analysis of the Viking Orbiter images taken from 1976 to 1980 showed a main occurrence of dust devils likewise in the afternoon in the summer of the northern hemisphere. It is assumed that dust devils are responsible for the entry of dust in the atmosphere and therefor represent an important aspect in the physics of the boundary layer of the martian atmosphere. Dust devils are recognized in Viking Orbiter images as bright clouds with long elongated shadows. An other characteristic is that dust devils are moving. A strict positive criterion for dust devil recognition during the investigation of Viking Orbiter pictures was the nonexistence of the characteristics on following or preceding images. Altogether over 250 dust devils were discovered, including dust devil candidates without second image. These phenomenons are most frequent between 14.30 and 16 pm in local afternoon. The height is 1000 m on average and the base diameters range from 200 to 300 m. The analysis of Viking and Mars Global Surveyor images will be continued by using pattern recognition techniques. This will be continued with the HRSC experiment on Mars Express starting in 2004 to receive further results regarding the temporal and spatial occurrence, the height, the motion and the direction of motion as well as the velocity and the dust entry into the atmosphere.

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