Textured dust storms on Mars
Astronomers studying Mars first noted the presence of yellow clouds on its surface in the 1870's. Today these windblown dust storms on Mars are well known, and can span local, regional or even global in scale. Storms can display visible structures, sometimes periodic with wavelike features, or in other cases streaky or plume-like. Storms with structures are called "textured dust storms" and they result from strong winds or other meteorological effects that lift dust into the Martian atmosphere. In addition to obscuring views of the Martian surface, the dust can affect atmospheric heating and other climatic processes. These dust storms, despite having been studied for more than a century, remain rather mysterious. It is not understood, for example, how textured storms are distributed over the surface of the planet, when their frequency peaks, or how much dust is actually swept up.