Transportation Science

Today's Martians must need super-strength vacuum cleaners. Here we see an enormous Martian dust devil casting a shadow over the surface of the planet in this image acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The view covers an area about four-tenths of a mile (644 meters) across. North is toward the top. The length of the whirlwind's shadow indicates that the dust plume reaches more than half a mile (800 meters) into the air. The plume is about 105 feet (32meters) in diameter.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona