Windmill of dust: recreating martian dust and gravity to test a scientific puzzle about storms on Mars. A great student project by WIND MILL for ESA’s Fly your thesis! programme. See a video of this experiment in action: http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2016/09/Windmill_of_dust
Mars is a dusty place and you might not think it is surprising that we regularly see dust storms on its surface. But the phenomenon has puzzled scientists since the 1980s when experiments showed that typical wind speeds recorded on Mars are not strong enough to lift the dust.Many theories…