Dust devils in Arabia Terra - Perseverance NavCam - Sol 1398
This enhanced processing of Navcam Left images shows several dust devils moving across the floor of Arabia Terra, just outside of Jezero crater.
The largest dust devil in the foreground is at least 300 meters high (328 yards).
The largest dust devil starts at the edge of the crater which is located 1 kilometer east of the rover’s location (~5/8 mile)
For scale the crater floor viewed from this direction is close to 220 meters wide (722 ft)
The original sequence lasts about 2.5 minutes, and was taken around 12:26 local mean solar time.
This is a reduced resolution version of the animation by Simeon Schmauß.
You can find the full resolution (wider) MP4 version on Flickr using this link
In this GIF, I see three dust devils, it looks like there are at least 4 in the full size (uncropped) version on Flickr.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Simeon Schmauß
(See map in comments)
This is one of the best dust devil videos ever captured, IMO. Spirit used to catch whole packs of them roaming the great prairie-like floor of Gusev Crater (back when that rover was perched up in the Columbia Hills, I believe), but this devil in the foreground here shows a lot of detail, and is quite close to the camera, unlike those in old shots from Spirit. From what I recall, Percy has been able to capture some nearby dust devils in similar detail, which is unsurprising given that the Jezero region is supposed to be the windiest site we’ve visited on Mars… but awesome nonetheless.
Just looking at the shadows it casts is very revealing, and watching the thick white patches of the vortex really gives you an idea of the turbulence involved here. It’s really cool that we can see the entire length of the shadows being cast; I wonder if this is one reason why these shots were taken near noon, rather than later in the afternoon, around the time of maximum daily heating.
For scale, the crater at the bottom left is 300 m across from left to right, so you can tell that the “foot” of the foreground devil is quite a bit bigger than Percy itself. So much to see here!