WHAT'S WAITING ON MARS?

Posted: Thursday, May 08, 2008 7:05 PM by Alan Boyle

Images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are providing an advance peek at what the Phoenix Mars Lander will be running up against when it lands near the planet's north pole later this month: The spacecraft will be coming down in the middle of a spring thaw, and based on the pictures released this week, there just might be some Martian mini- tornadoes swirling through the scene.

Two of the twisters, known as dust devils, show up on an April 20 image of Phoenix's projected landing area, taken by MRO's Context Camera. The Martian whirlwinds are similar to the desert mini-twisters often seen on Earth - and have previously been caught on camera by the Mars Pathfinder lander as well as NASA's Spirit rover. You can watch a dust devil spin through Spirit's line of sight in this year-old video clip.

Phoenix will be landing just as the north polar region is warming up. This picture shows you what the terrain looked like a couple of months ago. The terrain was a honeycomb of dark soil, broken up by patterns of fractures still filled with frozen carbon dioxide.

In contrast, this picture from MRO's Color Imager shows that the frost has largely retreated from Phoenix's projected landing area. A wider view of the dust-devil scene reveals that bright spots of frost still lie within some of the region's craters, but those may soon be gone as well.

More at cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com