Massive dust storm on Mars - KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and Sports

Massive dust storm on Mars

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NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (SUBMITTED) -

There are new images of a massive dust storm on Mars.  The dust devil, which has a plume of almost 12 miles above the surface, was recorded by a context camera currently orbiting the red planet.  Experts say that even though the plume looks more like a terrestrial tornado, the energy source is more like a dust devil which feeds primarily off of surface heat.  Interestingly, despite the monster size of the storm, the density of Mars' atmosphere is so low that even a high velocity dust devil would be unlikely to knock a person over.

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