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PIA11230: Late-summer Martian Dust Storm
This is an image of Mars taken from orbit by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Red Planet's polar ice-cap is in the middle of the image and the Phoenix Lander is shown as a small white dot.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) 
Phoenix 
 Spacecraft:  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
 Instrument:  MARCI 
 Product Size:  2312 x 2322 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Malin Space Science Systems 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA11230.tif (16.12 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA11230.jpg (237.4 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This is an image of Mars taken from orbit by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Mars Color Imager (MARCI). The Red Planet's polar ice-cap is in the middle of the image. Captured in this image is a 37,000 square-kilometer (almost 23,000 miles) dust storm that moved counter-clockwise through the Phoenix landing site on Oct 11, 2008, or Sol 135 of the mission.

Viewing this image as if it were the face of a clock, Phoenix is shown as a small white dot, located at about 10 AM. The storm, which had already passed over the landing site earlier in the day, is located at about 9:30 AM.

Photojournal Note: As planned, the Phoenix lander, which landed May 25, 2008 23:53 UTC, ended communications in November 2008, about six months after landing, when its solar panels ceased operating in the dark Martian winter.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

Image Addition Date:
2008-10-14