This image, made by the HiRise camera orbiting Mars aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), shows swirling patterns left on the Martian surface by passing dust devils. Like on Earth, the whirlwinds often expose materials just underneath the surface, which in this case are darker than the overlaying dust. Image sent to Earth on April 1, 2012. #

A towering dust devil casts a serpentine shadow over the Martian surface in this image acquired by HiRise on February 16, 2012. The scene is a late-spring afternoon in the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars. The view covers an area about four-tenths of a mile (644 meters) across. The length of the dusty whirlwind's shadow indicates that the dust plume reaches more than half a mile (800 meters) in height. #

From a perch high on a ridge, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this image of a Martian dust devil twisting through the valley below on March 31, 2016. The view looks back at the rover's tracks leading up the north-facing slope of Knudsen Ridge. Opportunity took the image using its navigation camera during the 4,332nd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars. #

In the Terra Sabaea region of Mars, west of Augakuh Vallis, this mysterious pattern sits on the crest of a ridge, and is thought to be the result of dust-devil activity—essentially the convergence of hundreds, or thousands, of smaller Martian whirlwinds. Image taken by HiRise on February 17, 2019. #

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used one of its navigation cameras to capture these images of dust devils swirling across Jezero Crater on July 20, 2021, the 148th Martian day, or sol, of its mission. This GIF has been enhanced in order to show maximal detail, with some color distortion. #

A Martian dust devil roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) high was captured winding its way along the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars on March 14, 2012, by the HiRise camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. #

The swirling vortex of a dust devil is visible near the center of this image. The shadow cast by this column of dust can be seen to its lower left, while the dark track left by its passage is evident to its upper right. Imaged by HiRise on August 12, 2009. #

In the summertime, the dark dune fields in the high southern latitudes of Mars grow warmer than the surrounding bright plains because they absorb more sunlight. Dust devils form over the warm dunes but then dance out over the plains, leaving dark tracks as bright dust is lifted from the surface. Imaged by HiRise in October of 2020. #

HiRise took this image of a dust devil in action on October 1, 2019. This whirlwind formed on the dust-covered, volcanic plains of Amazonis Planitia. The dark streak on the ground behind the dust devil is its shadow. The length of the shadow suggests the plume of rotating dust rises about 650 meters into the atmosphere. #

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit used its navigation camera to record this scene on the day the rover arrived at the crest area of Husband Hill, inside the Gusev crater. That was Spirit's 581st Martian day, or sol, on August 21, 2005. A whirlwind lofts a column of dust above the plain in the distance. #

This image shows many dark streaks created during the recent southern spring, left by dust devils as they passed over and around an old, nearly filled, meteor-impact crater, seen by the Mars Orbiter Camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in September of 2003. #