Looks like rain...

Looks like rain...

OK, I guess I bit on this one. Went to NASA/JPL, and found some similar Hazcam images posted new today (6/30), but none with the textured sky. Even tried enhancing some of them...

I give up. Has someone at Exploratorium gotten creative, or what??

Henry
Even though the images at jpl were posted today they are a day behind, All the latest images at Jpl are consistant with exploratorium upload of 6/29.
Richard

Maybe not rain, but we could get ground frost. Would that be amnazing? and, it would turn to mud! This crater would gety slikcer than shit if it got muddy, and the rover would slide STRAIGHT to the bottom. Now, THAT would be funny! I can just picture the press brefing:

Press question" So, how did the rover suddenly end up at the bottom of the crater?"

Squyres " Well, we think maybe a dry slip event, or maybe a strong wind was to blame. Certainly not mud."

Press: "So why are the wheels covered with mud?"

Squyres: "Thats not mud, it is dry sulfate salts with some residual static charge, whihc makes it cling and clump and LOOK like mud, but it is not mud."

Any particlar reason those wispy clouds could not be dust?

Sure would be interesting if they do turn out to be (1) real and (2) water!

Yes, maybe it's-a-rock!

I didn't know clouds were possible on Mars so I was really surprised to see this! I did a bit of research and found this link:

The Atmosphere of Mars

Quote: "Martian air contains only about 1/1,000th as much water as our air! Yet, even this small amount of water can condense out and form clouds. Local patches of early morning fog can form in valleys. At the Viking Lander 2 site, a thin layer of water frost was seen covering the ground each winter morning."

But it's a bit ambiguous... I don't know if they mean that the clouds that form are ALWAYS patches of fog in valleys, which this doesn't look like (seems too high), or whether higher kinds of clouds are acknowledged to form. Can anyone enlighten me?

horton...can't be a rock...it's most likely a worm emerging from a tubule, attached to a fungis growing on an algal-bacterial mat, which covers a bird skeleton, that is made up of foraminifera covered unknown fibers which have slumped over the edge of a hidden crater covered with living dunes at the bottom of a deep sulphuric acid ocean.

Or it could be a cloud that looks like a duck?

Or a Rok?

Sure there are water clouds on Mars - I've seen them in pictures taken from orbiters as well.

Water clouds on mars are well known from MOC images. They are well known but still rare. The reason is that the relative humidity for even a very small amount of water can be very high the relative humidity is often near 100% which is the condition clouds.

The MOC web site even has a section in the archive devoted to clouds.

[link]

This is one of my favorites:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/5_21_99_np_clouds/

and this:

The MER team spent some time trying to image clouds from Meridiani, but it is mostly luck.

Do we know if these are actually water clouds? Is there anything else these clouds could be?

Yes, apparently they are formed from very small ice particles, a bit like high altitude noctiluminescent clouds on Earth.

Noctilucent I mean.

More weather.

BTW, when the sky is black with Pancam filter 2 or 3 and bright with filters 6/7 you will have a very nice blue sky.

I hope to find a blue sky with some clouds.

More MOC clouds:

o Martian Clouds (Released 28 June 2004)
[link]

o Clouds Over the North Pole (Released 29 June 2004)
[link]

o Cloud-Ground Interaction (Released 30 June 2004)
[link]

o Cloud Interactions (Released 1 July 2004)
[link]

o Clouds and Dust Storms (Released 2 July 2004)
[link]

3 shots from 142908406 over 63 seconds.

I am surprised how quickly the clouds are moving.

Morning clouds? Front moving east?

Very cool Hort!!
True movement on Mars!
Richard

Horton,

Wow, WOW, Wow, All I can say is WOW!

Clouds on Mars!!!

That just blows my mind. Dare we say that Mars has a Hydrosphere? (albeit a small one?)