What strikes me is how earth-like this picture is. Could be a dessert anywhere. It's hard to imagine that if I were next to the rover I wouldn't be able to breath!
> Because the martian atmosphere is thin--about 1% as dense as Earth's at sea level--only the smallest dust grains hang in the air. "Airborne dust on Mars is about as fine as cigarette smoke," says Bell. These fine grains reflect 20% to 25% of the sunlight that hits them; that's why the clouds look bright. (For comparison, the reflectivity of typical martian terrain is 10% to 15%.)
>Sand dunes make up only about 15 percent of the Sahara, but the desert is so huge (about three and a half million square miles or 5.63 million sq km) that even a single dune may be enormous. The sand dune known as the Libyan Erg is as big as France.
NASA really needs some more recognition for the amazing work they do. "Soft power" and all that; they should be designated a wonder of the world or a UN heritage thing.
Yeah, to me it looks like you are viewing the aftermath of a dust storm in the American Southwest, or maybe Afghanistan.
It's so earth-like it's hard to believe that if you magically found yourself standing next to the rover in that picture, you would be dead in a couple of minutes.
Makes Mars seem approachable!