Tag Archives: dust

April 16, 2013

Modern art or windy Mars?

A piece of Mars: Is it modern art? Well maybe it looks like it from a distance. Up close, this is reality on Mars. These are dark dunes in the southern hemisphere, awaking from a long hibernation beneath bright winter ...

March 27, 2013

Giant crayons on Mars

A piece of Mars: There are vast plains on Mars that display criss-crossing streaks like this. These are ~5 m (~16 feet) across, give or take. Did an alien drive a dune buggy all over, leaving behind tracks? Nope. These ...

February 10, 2013

Rainbow dunes on Mars

A piece of Mars: The dark dune here seems to have a subtle rainbow color across it. Is it a real rainbow? Well, no. Part of it is that I've stretched the image to enhance color, so the dark dune ...

January 8, 2013

Mysterious textures

A piece of Mars: Dunes don't usually have a rough surface texture like these do. It's not clear what's going on. Are they ancient dunes that are being eroded? What causes this particular texture? It seems unique to high elevations ...

July 16, 2012

Patch of blue

A piece of Mars: Most of the image, stretching beyond the edges of this frame, shows a bland gray landscape of lava blanketed in dust. But one small patch of blue shows where sand is still actively moving and piling ...

May 22, 2012

When dunes die

A piece of Mars: This is what dunes look like when they die. At least on Mars. On Earth they typically get buried or eroded away. On Mars geology works slowly enough that the steep slopes of dunes are gradually ...

May 17, 2012

Dust and oddities

A piece of Mars: In the dustier regions of Mars, there are many small dark streaks on steep slopes that we don't understand well. Because we don't know much about them we call them "slope streaks", which is not the ...

May 9, 2012

Sand, wind, and dust

A piece of Mars: This is what dunes look like in the deepest part of Mars, where the air is full of bright dust that constantly settles out onto everything. The wind helps to clear off the sand dunes (blue ...