Curious, indeed! Our pal Curiosity recently captured "several whirlwinds carrying Martian dust across Gale Crater" on Mars, according to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These dust devils rise up when sunshine warms the ground, prompting convective rising of air. In the video below, timing is accelerated and contrast has been modified to make frame-to-frame changes easier to see, NASA JPL explained online. | Space.com

This isn’t a tornado… it’s a Martian dust devil. 🌪️🔴 Captured by a Mars rover, this towering spiral of dust forms when the Sun heats the Martian surface, causing warm air to rise rapidly through colder air above. Because Mars has a thin atmosphere and lower gravity, these dust devils can grow much taller and wider than those on Earth, sometimes stretching hundreds of meters into the sky. #Mars #MarsSurface #astronomy #redplanet | Mars journey