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I saw an article today linked by the International Society for Aeolian Research's Facebook page, on the dangers of dust being lofted in Earth's youngest desert, the Aralkum Desert in Kazakhstan. It's where the Aral Sea used to be, decades ago. Here's the article from Atlas Obscura. It sounds like a difficult place to get to, and an even harder place to study. But, I thought, maybe there was something interesting to see from above. Maybe even new dunes, because rapidly exposed lake beds provide ready sources of sand for building dunes. A flat plain of sand will tend to form... read more ❯

There is a mystery in our galaxy, and astronomers around the world are working to solve it. The NASA Kepler mission revealed that planetary systems are common, and that on average, each star has two planets in orbit around it. This is great news for SETI researchers, since it means that there are a lot of worlds out there to explore. Many of them may have liquid water, meaning that there is the possibility that life could exist elsewhere in our galaxy. However, there is something unusual about some recently discovered planetary systems—half of those with a sun-like star have... read more ❯

Something unusual for my blog, but why not... Unistellar is hiring a Communication and Community Manager in Marseille, France. If you like astronomy, want to work on the south of France for a high-tech startup and share your love for science, this is a job for you! We are looking for this motivated person to start ASAP. Below the ad: Communication and Community Management Internship Our Company Unistellar is a high-tech start-up based in Marseille, France, and in California. We are developing the eVscope, a unique connected consumer telescope. Our patented light-amplification system will revolutionize astronomy by making its practice as popular as... read more ❯

Right now, the Fourth Landing Site Workshop for the Mars 2020 rover mission is happening. It's the last one, and in a few hours the scientists attending the workshop will vote on which of four sites they think the rover should land. I love the geology, but mostly I love one little corner of geology: where the rocks meet the atmosphere. I like how studying the rocks can teach us about how the atmosphere, and therefore the climate, has changed over time on Mars. There are signs of windblown things pretty much anywhere you look on Mars, and since none of... read more ❯

The wind on Mars is an artist, or at least it tries really hard to be one. It flutters up and down mountains, winding along valleys, dragging its wings in the sand and building up really amazing structures that could win any sand sculpture award. Well okay maybe I'm a little biased. Like this 0.92x1.325 km (0.57x0.82 mi) view (click to see the detail, it's worth it): HiRISE ESP_054171_1605, NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona A while back (maybe a million years or so), the wind blew sediment from the lower right to upper left, leaving behind some long, thin ripple-like things we call TARs.... read more ❯

Today a big thing happened: a paper I've spent a year or so working on has finally been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (which we just call "JGR Planets"). Scientists write a lot of papers, so it's not as momentous as, say, graduating (or watching a student graduate), but it's still a really nice feeling. I can now download a PDF of the paper, look at all the pretty formatting, lovely figures and tables, pages of analysis and what I hope will turn out to be insightful discussion, and say "Yeah, I did that, and with some... read more ❯

A few weeks ago I wrote about dunes leaving behind trails near the north pole of Mars. They do this in a few other places as well, but it's not very common. Below is a rare example, this time on the floor of Hebes Chasma (one of the Valles Marineris), which is a tectonically-opened hole in the ground that's about 6 km deep. I don't mean to repeat the same topic, but geologists are usually drawn to terrain that so plainly lays out the geological story of an area, and obvious dune-generated layers are pretty rare. (Also pretty.) (HiRISE ESP_045586_1585, NASA/JPL/Univ.... read more ❯

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