The Perseverance exploration vehicle, built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and powered by plutonium fuel, landed on Mars on February 18, approximately 7 months after it was launched on July 30, 2020.
For the realization of Perseverance’s new mission on the Red Planet, which has the most advanced technological features among the vehicles sent to Mars, 2.4 billion dollars were spent on infrastructure works, and 300 million dollars were spent on the system that enables the vehicle to land on the surface and be operated.
Perseverance, which has meticulously explored the Red Planet since its inception, has now captured the dust devil on Mars.
DUST DEVIL TORQUE DANCED ON THE SURFACE OF THE RED PLANET
According to the news in TRT Haber, a new compilation of images taken from NASA’s Marz spacecraft Perseverance showed a dust devil tornado dancing on the surface of the Red Planet, 6.5 kilometers away from the spacecraft.
Mars dust devil caught in action! This video, which is sped up 20 times, was captured by one of my navigation cameras. ???? More on what my team is learning: https://t.co/PhaOYOTrFH pic.twitter.com/vRaAVszcm5
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) September 29, 2023
NASA said that on August 30, 2023, only the lower part of the tornado was seen moving along the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater.
The images were taken during Perseverance’s 899th day on Mars.
21 images taken four seconds apart by one of Perseverance’s cameras were stitched together and sped up nearly 20 times to show the dust devil’s movement.
Dust devils on Mars are weaker and smaller than tornadoes on Earth, but they are one of the ways dust is transported and redistributed on the planet, NASA said.