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

Looks a lot like Texas to me... :)

[geniusxyz]

Looks a lot like Texas to me... :)

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:Sombody call Al Gore

[statemachine]

Sorry, no. And WTF does an anti-AGW statement have to do with a dust-devil on Mars?

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf
and
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11650

But even if solar forcing in the past was more important than this estimate suggests, as some scientists think, there is no correlation between solar activity and the strong warming during the past 40 years. Claims that this is the case have not stood up to scrutiny (pdf document).

Direct measurements of solar output since 1978 show a steady rise and fall over the 11-year sunspot cycle, but no upwards or downward trend .

Similarly, there is no trend in direct measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet output and in cosmic rays. So for the period for which we have direct, reliable records, the Earth has warmed dramatically even though there has been no corresponding rise in any kind of solar activity.

Re:*could* this affect Phoenix?

[Chabil Ha']

It has happened and they are good for the rovers believe it or not. The normal winds kick up dust that inhibits the collection of solar light, but these dust devils actually help in removing it. One of the reasons they've been able to go so long on Mars has been for the devils themselves--this is just the first time they've been captured on film.