Whirlwinds on Mars, From the Ground

Neil Halelamien writes "Back in 1999, satellite images were photographed of 5-mile-high whirlwinds streaking across the surface of Mars. A couple of months ago the Spirit rover got a close up view of whirlwind tracks, and this past week photographed a whirlwind in action (animation). It's thought that these dust devils may be responsible for the mystery power boost to the rovers' solar cells. Last year the rovers also spotted clouds and frost."

Comments

Animation

[FTL]

Incase you are wondering about the /.ed animation, it is a two-frame, black and white, 1MB gif. The first frame shows a small whirlwind in the distance, the second frame doesn't show the whirlwind.

Not impressive compared to the tornado footage we're used to from the local TV station. But one must remember that the rovers' actions are scripted in advance. So it was a complete coincidence that a whirlwind happened to be in-frame when they took a photo. Which says something about how common they must be if we just happened to snag a picture of one.

If you are still interested, here's a mirror.