This Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera image shows a dust devil caught in the act of creating a dark streak on the floor of the large, south mid-latitude crater, Mendel.

Dozens of other dark streaks mark the paths of earlier dust devils.
 
Dust devil streaks at southern middle and high latitudes are seasonal features; they are erased each winter by thin deposits of dust and frost, and they are re-created each spring and summer by new dust devils.

 
Mars Global Surveyor was launched in November 1996 and has been in Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission on March 8, 1999.

 
Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by JPL for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.

-- Leonard David

Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems