With Europe still in the grip of winter, Martin Ahr from Munich, Germany, has sent us a beautiful animation of weather on another planet - in this case pre-dawn clouds on Mars. These clouds were captured during the 5 November 2009 VMC observation and are in the Southern Hemisphere of Mars, where summer had just ended and autumn was starting. At this time the temperature was far below 0°C, probably closer to -50 or -60°C -- makes our European winter seem a little less chilly!
 
Anyone on Mars around the time of these images would have woken up to a cloudy dawn, with Martin Ahr's assesment being, "There are clouds which appear to move also in a direction transverse to the direction of rotation of Mars, and some seem to disappear as the sun starts shining on them."
 
Martin has done a fantastic job of enhancing the clarity of these images and has sent us a detailed description of what he did to achieve this (click "Full Story" for his description). Click on the image for the full-size version. Thanks for your submission Martin! --Thomas
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