Drones probe terrestrial dust devils to better understand the atmosphere of Mars #drone #droneday

Via Phy.Org:

Dust devils, small dusty whirlwinds, have been studied for decades. But, says Brian Jackson, an associate professor in the Department of Physics at Boise State University, the ability of dust devils to lift dust into the atmosphere remains murky. “When we compare theoretical predictions of how much dust a devil should lift to how much it does lift, the numbers just don’t add up,” says Jackson.

They fly drones through active dust devils on the Alvord Desert of southeastern Oregon. The drones carry cameras and other lightweight instruments, including pressure and temperature loggers, that measure the structures of the dust devil while taking particle samples to determine how much material the dust devil is carrying. Jackson will present results today at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.

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Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.