Phoenix Lander Photographs Martian Whirlwinds

Toren Altair recommends a story up on the Space Fellowship site that begins "NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has photographed several dust devils dancing across the arctic plain this week and sensed a dip in air pressure as one passed near the lander. The Surface Stereo Imager ... caught a dust devil in action west of the lander in four frames shot about 50 seconds apart from each other. 'It was a surprise to have a dust devil so visible that it stood [out] with just the normal processing we do,' said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, lead scientist for the stereo camera. 'Once we saw a couple that way, we did some additional processing and found there are dust devils in 12 of the images.'"

Comments

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[dnwq]

So... why's there an tag around everything from "dancing..." to "...images."?

Just lovely

[Aerynvala]

I'll never get to go to Mars, but at least I get this. I'm loving the pictures that Phoenix is sending back. I enjoy seeing the differences and the similarities between the two planets. Just awe-inspiring.

Re:Just lovely

[statemachine]

An organism may suffer in space travel, but how well does hardware bear up after a few years, even with shielding?

To answer your first question:
Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, Cassini....

Not everything goes perfectly, but sometimes you get very lucky.

Just

[Anonymous Coward]

Beautiful