Talk:Dust devil

From Academic Kids

Dust devils are known to have significant static charges, but

Terrestrial dust devils are known to be accompanied by significant electrical discharges on the order of 2000 to 3000 watts per meter.

does anybody have a source for this statement? silsor 03:00, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

I can field this one. The Mars Astrobiology Magazine (http://mars.astrobio.net/) states:

"Indeed, the Matador project measures changes in Earth's electric field that hover around 100 volts per meter but ramp up dramatically to 2,000 or 3,000 volts per meter during sudden static bursts."[1] (http://mars.astrobio.net/news/print.php?sid=50)

The Matador project was sent to a terrestrial desert (in Arizona) to research the effects of dust devils on machines.

Interestingly, this figure of two or three thousand volts per meter amounts to only six or seven volts over the length of a human body. Dust devils are not "small" as the previous editions of this entry have stated baldly, they are tens of meters in diameter and a thousand or more meters long. - Plautus satire 03:08, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I see now I was saying "watts" when I meant "volts". I am sorry for this mistake, I will correct it. - Plautus satire 03:10, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The article still makes no sense. The source you cited is not talking about electrical discharges, it is talking about the potential of the electric field. Do you know what a volt is? I am also extremely interested in your claim that "two or three thousand volts per meter amounts to only six or seven volts over the length of a human body". By your numbers, an average human being is around 400 meters tall. silsor 03:19, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

Good point about my off-the-cuff remark about volts over the length of a human body. What doesn't make sense, though? Yes, I know what a volt is. Human beings are not four hundred meters tall, my claim about six or seven volts over the length of a human body was wrong. Volts per meter in this case is referring to field strength as measured by the instruments used by Matador. - Plautus satire 03:43, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In your version of 23:51, 24 Feb 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Dust_devil&oldid=2518038) I thought "damaging to terrestrial technology" meant you were referring to dust devils on Earth, so I edited it. Specifying "terrestrial technology sent to Mars" removes the confusion. Not clear though why "robotic landers and future human explorers" doesn't cover the bases. Curps

The only reason I would equivocate is because the threat isn't to the human explorers per se, it is to the technology keeping them alive in such a hostile environment. Maybe nitpicking, but then we are here to pick nits, apparently. - Plautus satire 03:57, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I can state that dust devils, in common usage in the Western US, are not unequivocally 1000 meters tall; the mountains around El Paso Texas rise 1000 meters above the desert floor, and the dust devils do not rise as tall as the mountains; at most, they were 100 feet tall, just as the photograph shows. Ancheta Wis 05:42, 20 May 2004 (UTC) On this basis, I am altering the text of the article. As further evidence, I can state that I have seen dust devils on the desert floor from a mountaintop and they were not 1000 meters tall.

In the upper States of the American Midwest, they are called "whirlwinds." They range from a skirl of leaves manheight to towering pillars of dust hundreds of feet high on late spring cultivated land.

Linked on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day

This page is linked on 26 Apr 2005 by this picture about Martian dust devils (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050426.html). --Euniana/Talk/Blog (http://stillwatersca.blogspot.com/) 20:36, 14 May 2005 (UTC)