--- title: "NASA’s Mars Rover Spots Super-Tall Dust Devil" description: "Whirling 'Round NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has spotted a super-tall dust devil on the Red Planet — and the agency has released the footage, y'all. In a press release about the fun find, NASA and CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory from whence Perseverance was born said that the small whirlwind was captured by the rover's cameras […]" date: "2023-10-02" modified: "2023-10-02" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-rover-whirlwind" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "mars" - "NASA" - "perseverance" - "the digest" --- # NASA’s Mars Rover Spots Super-Tall Dust Devil ![NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has spotted a super-tall dust devil on the Red Planet — and the agency has released the footage, y'all.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Whirling 'Round NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has spotted a super-tall dust devil on the Red Planet — and there's footage, y'all. In a [press release about the find](), NASA and CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, from whence Perseverance was born, said that the small whirlwind was captured by the rover's cameras at the end of August from a few miles away. Per the agency's calculations, this whirlwind was likely traveling at about 12 miles per hour and stood a whopping 1.2 miles high. Everything about NASA's descriptions of the specs of the dust devil, from its location in Mars' Jezero Crater along its Thorofare Ridge to the agency's reminder that whirlwinds on the Red Planet can grow significantly larger than those on Earth, seems more like something out of the "Star Wars" universe than something that occurred on the planet over from ours. https://twitter.com/futurism/status/1708481739927036328 ## Shadow Science Though it was shot from about two-and-a-half miles away, a member of Perseverance's terran team described how the team at NASA was able to figure out the height of the whirlwind. "We don’t see the top of the dust devil, but the shadow it throws gives us a good indication of its height," Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at Boulder, Colorado's Space Science Institute and Perseverance team member said in the press release. "Most are vertical columns. If this dust devil were configured that way, its shadow would indicate it is about 1.2 miles in height." Though dust devils on Earth are much smaller than tornadoes, ranging an average of [500 to 1,000 feet]() as compared to the [five or ten-mile-high cyclones]() that can decimate whole cities, that's clearly not the case on Mars — and this footage, like most everything else [captured by NASA's Mars rovers](), gives us another look into just how wild the Red Planet can be. **More on Mars:** [*NASA Brags That in Just Two Years, It Generated Enough Oxygen for a Small Dog to Breathe for 10 Hours*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()