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PIA13305: First Dust Devil Seen by Opportunity
This is the first dust devil that NASA's rover Opportunity has observed in the rover's six and a half years on Mars. This image has been carefully calibrated and the contrast stretched to make the dust devil easier to see against the Martian sky.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Exploration Rover (MER) 
 Spacecraft:  Opportunity
 Instrument:  Panoramic Camera 
 Product Size:  1020 x 222 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Cornell University 
 Other  
Information: 		 JPL News Release 2010-250 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA13305.tif (226.9 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA13305.jpg (38.88 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This is the first dust devil that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has observed in the rover's six and a half years on Mars. The whirlwind appeared in a routine drive-direction image taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera right after a drive during the 2,301st Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (July 15, 2010).

Contrast has been stretched and the image has been carefully calibrated to make the dust devil easier to see against the Martian sky.

Opportunity's twin, Spirit, has observed dozens of dust devils at its location in Gusev Crater halfway around Mars from Opportunity's location in the Meridian Planum region. Opportunity conducted systematic searches for dust devils in past years without seeing any. A rougher and dustier surface at Gusev makes dust devils form more readily there than at Meridiani.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University/Texas A&M

Image Addition Date:
2010-07-28