News
Martian dust storms are driving away spacecraft-saving dust devils
Dust devils are pretty common on Mars – the Red Planet is, after all, a very dusty and windy place. What’s a bit more rare is capturing one of the whirling devils on film. That’s because they fade away nearly as quickly as they appear.
But in October 2019, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter managed to snap a photo of a massive dust devil in action, courtesy of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), a powerful camera that’s been snapping photos of the Martian surface since 2006.
NASA’s first glimpse of one of these dust storms came in 1971 when the Mariner 9 spacecraft — the first to orbit another planet — arrived at the red planet. Since then, we’ve seen quite a few of these dusty spectacles global storms: in 1977 (twice), 1982, 1994, 2001, 2007 and 2018.
In 2018, we lost the Opportunity rover to the strongest dust storm ever observed on Mars. It blotted out nearly all of the sun’s light for several weeks, turning day into night and preventing the rover from being able to charge its batteries. (Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, ran on solar power, as opposed to Curiosity and the Mars 2020 rover, which run on nuclear power.)
Martian dust storms are common, especially at specific times in the year, like during the southern hemisphere’s spring and summer. Localized storms tend to last a couple of days and can cover regions of the planet the size of the United States. But planet-encircling ones are a different story.
These massive, global storms are usually unpredictable, and can linger for months at a time. “We still don’t know what drives the variability, but the 2018 storm gives another data point,” says Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who’s a lead in NASA’s dust storm investigation.
Dust devils are rotating columns of air and dust that form when hot air from the surface rises. The current of air created forms a whirlwind, which can be useful for clearing off solar panels on spacecraft as they pass over.
As we move towards potential human missions we need to know how the dust will affect astronauts as well as their equipment. Understanding how often these phenomena occur will be extremely helpful for future missions.
During the dust storm of 2018, Curiosity was able to collect data about the storm, watching as its effects were felt half a world away from where Opportunity sat, hunkered down and hibernating.
Curiosity discovered that dust devils disappear during a dust storm, which happens to be when we need them the most. And they’re gone for several months afterwards as well. This is because the storm interrupts the wind-generating processes that spawn the dust devils.
According to Guzewich, understanding a global storm’s impact on dust devils is a crucial component in planning how to manage equipment during future Mars missions. “You need to be prepared to go a while before your next dust devil passes over and cleans you off,” he said.
Researchers at the University of Arizona recently published details on a newly photographed dust devil, which formed on the volcanic plains of Amazonis Planitia.
According to the HiRISE imaging team, the core of the dust devil is 164 feet (50 meters) wide, and probably about 2,32 feet (650 meters) tall. As massive as it sounds, there are even larger ones whirling around.
In March 2012, HiRISE took a photo of an active dust devil that was a whopping 12 miles (20 kilometers) tall. But was only slightly wider than the most recent one, at just over 229 feet (70 meters) wide.
For the first time, humanity has a fleet of spacecraft orbiting Mars as well as one rover roaming the surface right now (with two more to follow in the coming months). With their help, scientists will be able to better understand this puzzling phenomenon.
Lifestyle
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
California just gave police power to ticket driverless cars, including Tesla’s Cybercab fleet.
California DMV formally adopted new rules on April 29, 2026 that allow law enforcement to issue “notices of noncompliance”, or in other words ticket autonomous vehicle companies when their cars commit moving violations. The rules take effect July 1, 2026 and officially closes a regulatory gap that previously let driverless cars operate on public roads with nearly no traffic enforcement consequences.
Until now, state traffic laws only applied to human “drivers,” which meant that when no person was behind the wheel, police had no mechanism to issue a ticket. Officers were limited to citing driverless vehicles for parking violations only. A well-known example came in September 2025, when a San Bruno officer watched a Waymo robotaxi execute an illegal U-turn and could do nothing but notify the company.
Under the new framework, when an officer observes a violation, the autonomous vehicle company is effectively treated as the driver. Companies must report each incident to the DMV within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a collision is involved. Repeated violations can result in fleet size restrictions, operational suspensions, or full permit revocation. Local officials also gained new authority to geofence driverless vehicles out of active emergency zones within two minutes and require a live emergency response line answered within 30 seconds.
Tesla Cybercab ramps Robotaxi public street testing as vehicle enters mass production queue
California’s new enforcement rules arrive at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company is ramping Cybercab production at Giga Texas toward hundreds of units per week, targeting at least 2 million units annually at full capacity, while simultaneously pushing to expand its Robotaxi service to dozens of U.S. cities by end of 2026. Unsupervised FSD for consumer vehicles is currently targeted for Q4 2026, and when it arrives, Tesla’s fleet may not have a human to absorb legal accountability, under the July 1 rules.
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its Robotaxi service to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, with the service already running without safety drivers in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
News
Tesla Model X shocks everyone by crushing every other used car in America
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
The Tesla Model X was the fastest-selling used vehicle in the United States in the first quarter of the year, crushing every other used car in America.
iSeeCars data for the first quarter shows that the Model X was the fastest-selling used car, lasting just 25.6 days on the market on average, two days better than that of the second-place Lexus RX 350h. The Cybertruck, Model Y, and Model S, in seventh, ninth, and thirteenth place, respectively, also made the list.
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
Tesla brings closure to flagship ‘sentimental’ models, Musk confirms
Bringing closure to these two vehicles signaled the end of the road for the cars that have effectively built Tesla’s reputation for luxury and high-end passenger vehicles.
Relying on the sales of its mass market Model Y and Model 3, as well as leaning on the success of future products like the Cybercab, is the angle Tesla has chosen to take.
Teslas are also performing extremely well as a whole on the resale market. iSeeCars data shows that, “while the average price of a 1- to 5-year-old non-Tesla EV fell 10.3% in Q1 2026 year-over-year, the average price of a used Tesla was essentially flat at 0.1% lower across the same period. Traditional gas car prices dropped 2.8% during this same period.”
Additionally, market share for gas cars has dropped nearly 3 percent since the same quarter last year. Tesla has remained level, while the non-Tesla EV market share has increased 30 percent, mostly due to more models available.
Nevertheless, those non-Tesla EVs have seen their value drop by over 10 percent, while Tesla’s values have remained level.
Executive Analyst Karl Brauer said:
“Used electric vehicles without a Tesla badge have lost more than 10% of their value in the past year. This compares to stable values for Teslas and hybrids, and a modest 2.8% drop for traditional gasoline vehicles.”
Teslas, as well as non-luxury hybrids, are displaying the strongest resistance in the face of faltering demand, the publication says. But the more impressive performance is that of the Model X alone.
Tesla’s decision to stop production of the Model X may have played some part in the vehicle’s pristine performance in Q1. With the car already placed at a premium price point, used models are already more appealing to consumers. Perhaps second-hand versions were more than enough for those who wanted a Model X, and only a Model X.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck’s head-scratching trim sold terribly, recall documents reveal
The head-scratching offering was only available for a few months, and evidently, it did not sell very well, which we all suspected. New recall documents on the vehicle from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now reveal just how poorly it sold.
After Tesla decided to build a Rear-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck trim back in 2025, which was void of many features and only featured a small discount.
The head-scratching offering was only available for a few months, and evidently, it did not sell very well, which we all suspected. New recall documents on the vehicle from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now reveal just how poorly it sold.
The recall deals with a potentially separating wheel stud and potentially impacts 173 Cybertruck units with the 18-inch steel wheels. The Cybertruck RWD was the only trim level to feature these, and the 173 potentially impacted units represent a portion of the population of pickups. Therefore, it’s not the entire number of RWD Cybertruck sold, but it could show how little interest it gathered.
The NHTSA document states:
“On affected vehicles, higher severity road perturbations and cornering may strain the stud hole in the wheel rotor, causing cracks to form. If cracking propagates with continued use and strain, the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.”
Only 5 percent are expected to be impacted, meaning less than 10 units will have the issue if the NHTSA and Tesla estimates are correct. Nevertheless, the true story here is how terribly the RWD Cybertruck sold.
Tesla ended production and stopped offering the RWD Cybertruck to customers last September. For just $10,000 less than the All-Wheel-Drive trim, Tesla offered the RWD Cybertruck with just one motor, textile seats instead of leather, only 7 speakers instead of 15, no Rear Touchscreen, no Powered Tonneau Cover for the truck bed, and no 120v/240v outlets.
For just $10,000 more, at $79,990, owners could have received all of those premium features, as well as a more capable All-Wheel-Drive powertrain that featured Adaptive Air Suspension. The discount simply was not worth the sacrifices.
Orders were few and far between, and sources told us that when it was offered, sales were extremely tempered because customers could not see the value in this trim level.
Even Tesla’s most loyal supporters thought the offering was kind of a joke, and the $10,000 extra was simply worth it.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla Model X shocks everyone by crushing every other used car in America
