On August 30, 2023, the 899th Martian day (or sol) of the mission, one of the Navcams on NASA's Perseverance rover recorded the lower part of a Martian dust devil. The movie was sped up 20 times and made up of 21 frames that were captured four seconds apart in order to display the most information possible.
The dust devil was located at a place called "Thorofare Ridge," approximately 2.5 miles (4 kilometres) distant, and was travelling from east to west at a speed of roughly 12 mph (19 kph), according to information from the images. They estimated it to be around 200 feet (60 metres) wide. Even though the camera only captures the lowest 387 feet (118 metres) of the spinning vortex, researchers were able to calculate its complete height of nearly 1.2 miles (2 kilometres) using the dust devil's shadow.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
