Global image of Mars from UAE’s Al-Amal orbiter
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The United Arab Emirates (UAE) today released several new images taken by its Al-Amal Mars orbiter, showing the changing atmospheric conditions on Mars between September ’21 and January ’22.
The photo to the right, cropped and annotated by me, is the January image, showing the dust storm conditions that presently exist in the equatorial regions of Mars. The lighter puffy cloud-like features in the center of the image are a 1,500 mile wide dust storm centered on the equator. The white dot indicates the approximate spot where Perseverance sits in Jezero Crater, within that storm.
The previous Al-Amal image from September (available at the link) shows the whole Martian hemisphere with generally clear skies.
Below is a recent photo taken by Perseverance illustrating these dusty conditions.
Click for full image.
The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 10, 2022 by one of the rover’s high resolution cameras, and appears to be looking to the west at the rim of Jezero in the distance. As you can see, the view is extremely hazy.
While dusty conditions such as this caused the end of the Opportunity rover, and are about to end InSight’s mission, both those probes depended on solar panels for power. Thus, dust and lower lighting conditions cut the power available to both landers, to the point that both could no longer operate.
Perseverance does not depend on solar power, however, but a form of nuclear power, so this dust storm had no significant impact on its operations. Ingenuity however does use solar panels, and it is this dust storm that caused the month-long delay in the helicopter’s 19th flight as engineers waited for the Martian air to clear.
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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The United Arab Emirates (UAE) today released several new images taken by its Al-Amal Mars orbiter, showing the changing atmospheric conditions on Mars between September ’21 and January ’22.
The photo to the right, cropped and annotated by me, is the January image, showing the dust storm conditions that presently exist in the equatorial regions of Mars. The lighter puffy cloud-like features in the center of the image are a 1,500 mile wide dust storm centered on the equator. The white dot indicates the approximate spot where Perseverance sits in Jezero Crater, within that storm.
The previous Al-Amal image from September (available at the link) shows the whole Martian hemisphere with generally clear skies.
Below is a recent photo taken by Perseverance illustrating these dusty conditions.
Click for full image.
The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 10, 2022 by one of the rover’s high resolution cameras, and appears to be looking to the west at the rim of Jezero in the distance. As you can see, the view is extremely hazy.
While dusty conditions such as this caused the end of the Opportunity rover, and are about to end InSight’s mission, both those probes depended on solar panels for power. Thus, dust and lower lighting conditions cut the power available to both landers, to the point that both could no longer operate.
Perseverance does not depend on solar power, however, but a form of nuclear power, so this dust storm had no significant impact on its operations. Ingenuity however does use solar panels, and it is this dust storm that caused the month-long delay in the helicopter’s 19th flight as engineers waited for the Martian air to clear.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Bob,
Is the plan for all Mars probes going forward to be powered by nuclear sources. Would seem insane to me to send something into that environment which was reliant on solar power.
Too bad there’s no mechanism provided for Ingenuity to return and get a recharge boost from Perseverence’s nuclear power, if needed. Or at least provide a blower on Perseverence that could blow off Ingenuity’s solar panels as Perseverence drives over it.
Just wondering- should a dust devil come along and blow the dust off of Opportunity, could it actually wake up?
Andi: No. Opportunity is dead. Once its power dropped so low that it could no longer maintain the instruments at a certain temperature, they froze.
Robert:
Might it be possible that Opportunity might have been buried completely (or partially), when that global dust storm hit it?
Lemuel Ricafort Vargas: No. The amount of material in a Martian dust storm is quite small. Remember, the atmosphere is 1/1000th as thick as Earth’s. The dust can block sunlight during a storm, and it can reduce the efficiency of a solar panel significantly, but neither requires very much dust.
As the pic at top illustrates, the quantity of sunlight being “blocked” isn’t large, together with the crater wall dozens of miles away being still visible, so the quantity of dust suspended in the air really isn’t all that much.