Dust devils produce magnetic fields. (Earth Science).Scientists who chase dust devils For other uses of this phrase, see Dust devil (disambiguation). Dust Devils is an independently published role-playing game set in a spaghetti western setting, written by Matt Snyder. report that the tiny twisters can produce a small magnetic field that changes magnitude between 3 and 30 times per second. When grains of sand and clay collide inside a dust devil dust devil: see whirlwind. , they generate electric charges, says William M. Farrell, a geophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Md. Negative charges typically transfer to the smaller, lighter particles, which are lofted higher than the heavier grains. As these charged particles swirl, they generate magnetic fields magnetic fields, n.pl the spaces in which magnetic forces are detectable; created by magnetostrictive ultrasonic scalers to cause the tips of instruments such as ultrasonic scalers to vibrate. just the way electrons moving in an electromagnet's coiled wire do. Because a dust devil's charged particles move in circular paths at ever-changing speeds, they create a varying magnetic field. On a typical summer day, several dozen dust devils spin across the dry lake bed in Nevada's Eldorado Valley. Farrell and his colleagues made their measurements by driving their instrument-laden pickup truck directly through or near dust devils. For one 10-meter-wide, 200-m-tall dust devil, the researchers could detect the magnetic field from several hundred meters away. The team reports its measurements in the Jan. 15 Geophysical Research Letters Geophysical Research Letters is a publication of the American Geophysical Union. GRL is the organization's only letters journal. Since its introduction in 1974, GRL has published only short research letters, typically 3-5 pages long, which focus on a specific discipline or . Similar instruments on a future Mars lander could measure the strength of Martian dust devils, which have shown up on images taken by the Mars Pathfinder lander and by probes orbiting the Red Planet.--S.P. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion