They look like spiraling trails left behind by drops of ink as they fall into a glass of water. Or perhaps some kind of shamanistic markings, drawn in woad on bare flesh. They call to mind the “magnificent desolation” astronaut Buzz Aldrin spoke of after his trip to the Moon.
They are actually trails, left behind by dust devils as they dance across the surface of our neighbor Mars. And they serve as a reminder that, even in environments hostile to life as we know it, tremendous beauty and grace can be found.
The image comes from NASA’s HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It shows where the dust devils have been dancing on the Martian surface; the lightweight red dust is picked up by these whirlwinds (which can be almost five miles tall) and leaves the darker, heavier sand beneath it exposed.
The dust devils aren’t all that different from those in deserts on Earth — hot air rises from the surface, spinning as it goes and picking up whatever is light enough to be carried away. They last only minutes, scientists believe, and may actually have done NASA some good by occasionally clearing sand off of the solar collectors on the two Mars rovers.
But for the rest of us, who perhaps in our daily lives have little concern over extraterrestrial weather phenomena or the trials and tribulations of roving robots, the image offers a moment of beauty, and may provoke our thoughts to turn away from the worries and obligations of the everyday and contemplate for a moment the fact that there is beauty to be found everywhere, even beyond the bound of our own planet.