Electrical Wind[/quote]nick c wrote:fosborn wrote:wind: a result of an atmosphere equalizing, unequal pressures. Mechanical.
Electricity; electrical field or force, non mechanical, a field.
The distinction is not necessarily that clear-cut. There is such a thing as an "electrical wind."
Thanks for moving us along nick c. (pun)
https://www.ee.washington.edu/research/ ... ronics.pdf
Something cool I didn't know, which seems to downgrade, my speculation that dust devils may have had little to do with covering the landing site.[/Figure 1 illustrates the operation of this device.
Gas molecules surrounding the corona electrode are
ionized by the high intensity electric field at the tip,
forming an ion stream between the corona and
collector electrodes, thus creating airflow
http://www.electrostatics.org/images/ES ... Delory.pdfElectrical Phenomena on the Moon and
Mars
At the smallest scales,
warm-cored, convective vortices known as dust devils range from 100 m – 1 km in
width, 10-15 km in height, and occur daily at almost all locations throughout the planet....
Using a combination of modeled and experimentally derived profiles of the atmosphere
and electron density for Mars, the electrical conductivity of the atmosphere has
been estimated to be ~10-12 S/m [33], several orders of magnitude higher than on Earth.
Thus from Earth to Mars, characteristictimescales for charge dissipation decreases from
minutes to seconds.
So the second part is so interesting. I wonder if this much faster dissipation times would reduce the strength of double layers building up and would reduce their effect?
Also in the same article;
9. Electrical Weatherhowever the role of dissipative processes in dust charging
events remains highly uncertain, and hence whether or not charge separation can be
maintained over sufficient temporal and spatial scales for lightning to be generated on
Mars remains a mystery. Adding to this mystery is the continual controversy as to what
process initiates terrestrial lightning, since it has become clear that electric fields in thunderstorms
usually achieveonly a fraction of the magnitude necessary to meet traditional
breakdown criteria
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/elect ... erse16.htm
This gives affirmation of where Wal is coming from;
[/quote]Most people are unaware that we have no understanding of how lightning is created in clouds. The simplest answer is that lightning is not generated there at all. Clouds merely form a convenient path to Earth for electricity originating in space
So it seems the much faster dissipation rate of double layers may account for a lack of lightening? Or could this be evidence there is little double layer influence on the global scale of Mars?To date, there have been no direct detections of what could be considered Martian
lightning.quote]http://www.electrostatics.org/images/ES ... Delory.pdf