JPL Captures Colorful Images from Mars

Scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory have created a portrait of a moving dust devil by combining three images of Mars taken seconds apart, it was announced on July 14.

A set of unmanned cameras of Spirit captured images of a whirlwind-like substance on the red planet. As each image was taken individually but just seconds apart, scientists at JPL were able to put the images together to create a wide portrait.

“The panoramic camera on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit was taking exposures through different filters during the 1,919th Martian day of Spirit’s mission (May 27) as part of constructing a large color panorama,” JPL scientists said about the dust devil in a released statement. “Three westward shots, with several seconds intervening between them, caught a whirlwind in motion. A composite image combining the three exposures to make a color image of the Martian ground shows the dust devil in different colors, according to where it was on the horizon when each exposure was taken.”

According to JPL’s scientists, dust devils are a common occurrence on both Mars and Earth. They added more than 650 dust devils have been captured by Spirit since it touched down on the red planet in 2004.

A dust devil occurs when solar energy heats a surface, resulting in a layer of warm air just above the surface, JPL’s scientists said. The dense nature of the warmed air, combined with the cooler atmosphere above it, allows the newly formed cloud to rise, making a swirling thermal plume that picks up dust from the surface and carries it into the atmosphere. This plume of dust moves with the local wind, JPL’s scientists said in the statement.