Martian dust devils are fleeting, but the footprints they leave behind can endure for months. Now, researchers have used those tracks to learn about the whirlwinds and potentially guide future mission planning.
As wind swirls across the landscape on both Mars and Earth, it sweeps up ground particles that reveal the dry columns. The whirlwinds dance across the landscape, leaving a path revealed by excavated particles. On the active surface of Earth, such paths are hard to spot. But on the nearly inactive surface of Mars, they can remain for months, long after the devils' minutes-long lifetimes.
