page_title: Hellas quadrangle
section_title: Dust devil tracks
hierarchical_section_title: Hellas quadrangle / Dust devil tracks
caption_attribution_description: English: Secchi Crater Floor with pedestal crater, as seen by hirise. location is 57.7 degrees south latitude and 101.5 degrees east longitude. Image was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Image courtesy NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
context_page_description: The Hellas quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey Astrogeology Research Program. The Hellas quadrangle is also referred to as MC-28.
  The Hellas quadrangle covers the area from 240° to 300° west longitude and 30° to 65° south latitude on the planet Mars. Within the Hellas quadrangle lies the classic features Hellas Planitia and Promethei Terra. Many interesting and mysterious features have been discovered in the Hellas quadrangle, including the giant river valleys Dao Vallis, Niger Vallis, Harmakhis, and Reull Vallis—all of which may have contributed water to a lake in the Hellas basin in the distant past. Many places in the Hellas quadrangle show signs of ice in the ground, especially places with glacier-like flow features.
context_section_description: Many areas on Mars, including the Hellas quadrangle, experience the passage of giant dust devils.  A thin coating of fine bright dust covers most of the martian surface.  When a dust devil goes by it blows away the coating and exposes the underlying dark surface.  Dust devils have been seen from the ground and from orbiting spacecraft.  They have even blown the dust off of the solar panels of the two Rovers on Mars, thereby greatly extending their lives.  The twin Rovers were designed to last for 3 months, instead they have lasted more than five years.  The pattern of the tracks have been shown to change every few months.  A study that combined data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) found that some large dust devils on Mars have a diameter of 700 meters and last at least 26 minutes.
caption: Secchi Crater Floor, as seen by HiRISE.  Click on image to see dust devil tracks and a pedestal crater
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