Submitted by marketrent t3_yfa5pz in space
Sabrewolf t1_iu8932v wrote
Reply to comment by WimpyRanger in NASA spacecraft records epic ‘marsquakes’ as it prepares to die by marketrent
You are greatly overestimating the amount of mechanical force an EM field can apply to electrostatically charged martian dust. Even at the kV level, an EDS panel cannot "pop" dust off. Nor does charging the panel allow dust to become mobile enough to passively slide off without further EM interaction, even if the panel were angled.
The way an EDS works is by shifting the dust by alternatingly charging the patterned electrodes in the screen. Because EM field intensity falls off with the square of distance, this pattern is required to keep the dust close to the charged electrodes.
And all this still ignores the issue of Paschens breakdown.
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