Hi guys,
This image had really been bugging me. I'd swear it shows dust rolling off of the NPC into Mare Acidladium. The problem was, the only data I could find showing the region was THEMIS data, and it showed no dust in this area on October 25th. People on the Mars Observers list, thought it didn't show dust, and THEMIS backed that up. But it was seem in Red, covered albedo features, and just looked like dust to me in RGB. I was able to make contact with one of the THEMIS scientists and sent me a kind, long e-mail today. He said since MRO has been in safe mode, the THEMIS data isn't very reliable and the dates with the data put out can be way off. He looked carefully at my image and said.....
"Also, from a more qualitative analysis, the shape of the dust activity
in your image seems to match the shape of the dust activity we've seen
over Acidalia in our maps from the last few weeks. I think you
observed a pretty big early-spring northern dust storm!"
This just made my day. His e-mail also talked a bit about the rover maneuvers they were attempting today and.....
"I just looked at your image and ... WOW! That is beautiful! I think
I'm going to make that my desktop image. I'm so used to seeing Mars
through THEMIS images it's cool to see the whole globe like that!"
Now that REALLY made my day.
Here is the image in question...
