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Dust devils buzz Curiosity rover on Mars


Saru

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Data collected by the rover's meteorological instruments indicates significant dust devil activity.

Curiosity has spent several weeks now parked at a sand dune dubbed "Rocknest", where it has been testing procedures for digging up soil samples and delivering them to the robot's big internal laboratories.

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The article doen't indicate how strong these dust devils are, but I sure hope that one doesn't damage Curiousity.

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Dust won't do the solar panels any good. They should have built in a way of cleaning the dust off them. I'm presuming they didn't.

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Dust won't do the solar panels any good. They should have built in a way of cleaning the dust off them. I'm presuming they didn't.

That isn't a problem on Curiosity because it doesn't use solar panels, it uses a thermoelectric radioisotope generator thet utilizes the heat from decaying plutonium to charge a battery through thermocouples. This sysetm provides a steady amount of power regardless of environmental conditions and also warms vital instruments throughout the rover.

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The article doen't indicate how strong these dust devils are, but I sure hope that one doesn't damage Curiousity.

i remember reading that these dust devils are really weak, if you experienced one it would be like someone blowing on you. so not even a light breeze.

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i remember reading that these dust devils are really weak, if you experienced one it would be like someone blowing on you. so not even a light breeze.

OK. Good to know. Thanks.

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