Storm Watching on Mars

[rdale]

Like storm chasers on Earth, a NASA spacecraft spends time each day pursuing intense weather on Mars. Speeding along in orbit, it takes images of dust storms. Often, the storms are spiral like giant tornadoes on Earth. Sometimes they form huge fronts of churning dust like the "black blizzards" of the 1930s. The storms lift dust particles high into the atmosphere that serve as seeds for water-ice cloud formation. Water ice condenses onto the dust particles to form wispy, white clouds.

These images show whirlwinds on top of volcanoes and a dust front rising from a network of canyons. Thin veils of icy clouds dissipate into the atmosphere above the dust plumes. The orbiter has discovered that smaller storms on Mars can feed into larger storms. Now that NASA has extended the mission, there will be lots more chances to look for the perfect storm on Mars!

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/spotlight/20081218a.html

 

[Derek Mohr]

It would be great to see what these babies look like from ground-level as well, hopefully they start sending out dune-buggies with cameras next!

 

[rdale]

The rovers have seen them in action - do a quick search at JPL's page and there are some movies of dustnadoes.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Check out this concept for a future mission, a UAV trip to mars!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/1287566.html

 

[Morgan Palmer]

I shudder to think about the effect of our current economic crisis on our space program. I hope we do not sacrifice future exploration for the PR benefit of a few hundred million "saved"... which won't matter a lick in the long run.