Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA) have shown a new image of Mars with part of the Argir plain and the Hooke crater. The photo shows the footprints of the so-called “dust devils”. The footage was published on February 12 on the ESA website.
The image was taken by the CaSSIS camera aboard the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) on February 1, 2021.
The lens captured part of the Argir plain, where the landscape looks like a “chaotic terrain”. The image shows a kind of “broken” terrain, jumbled groups of rocks of various sizes and shapes – irregular ledges, conical mounds, ridges, flat-topped hills known as mesas.
A feature of the photographs is the thin, wriggling blue lines formed by dust vortices that occur on both Mars and Earth when warm air quickly rises into colder air. These “dust devils” leave footprints on the surface of the planet as they travel through dusty landscapes.
In February 2021, TGO removed giant tornadoes from orbit on Mars. In the video, bright spots moved along the floor of a 70-kilometer crater in the southern hemisphere of Mars, leaving behind a dark streak.
The TGO lander arrived on Mars in 2016 and began the mission in 2018. ExoMars had to solve two problems – to put the TGO probe into a stable orbit and to land the Schiaparelli demonstration module on the Meridian plateau. The second mission ended in failure.
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
