This false-color scene from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity documents movement of dust as a regional dust storm approached the rover's location on Feb. 24, 2017, during the 4,653rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars.
<p>Key to detecting the movement is that Pancam color images are combinations of different images taken a short time apart through different color filters. Note that along the horizon, the left portion of the image has a bluish band (with label and arrow in Figure 1). The component image admitting blue light was taken about 150 seconds after the component image admitting red light. A layer of dust-carrying wind hadn't reached this location by the earlier exposure, but had by the later one. A clearer example of this color clue to changing location can be compared at <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12121">PIA12121</a>, a 2009 view of a dust devil from the Pancam on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.
</p><p>This Sol 4653 Opportunity view is toward the north from the rover's location on the western rim of Endeavour Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars.
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JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about Spirit and Opportunity, visit <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov">http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov</a>.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU
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