NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has produced a truly stunning image of a Martian dust devil using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
The Martian Dust Devil Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA
The Devil is about 12 miles high (though only 70 meters across) and was produced as the Sun warmed the ground in such a way that a vortex was created. This sort of weather feature is most common when the sun’s heating effect is felt most strongly and fittingly this particular event occurred just two weeks before the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice.
NASA scientists have put together this video showing the dust devil in action
You can read more about this weather phenomenon here
