June

June 20, 2012

Dune bones

A piece of Mars: The thin stripes within stripes are the bones of dunes. You’re seeing old dunes that have had their tops eroded away so you’re seeing into their insides, as if you were dissecting them in a biology […]
June 19, 2012

The edge of the ice

A piece of Mars: This is the edge of the northern polar cap on Mars. At the top is the bright icy surface, which is abruptly cut by a cliff. The wall of the cliff shows many layers of different […]
June 18, 2012

Generations of erosion

A piece of Mars: Sometime in the past, large ripples wandered the dusty lanes of this landscape, sandblasting the hills as they marched on by. Those ripples stopped moving and turned into the fossils you see here. Their bumpy texture […]
June 17, 2012

Enigma

A piece of Mars: Here is an example of an aeolian enigma. Dunes are depositional, meaning they are made of stuff that piles up on a surface. But these dunes show the strata of the underlying rock within them, which […]
June 6, 2012

Stretched out

A piece of Mars: Dunes near the north pole take on a stretched appearance. It’s been proposed that ice in the dunes acts to cement them, which makes them look elongated. (HiRISE PSP_010219_2785)
June 4, 2012

Boulder tracks

A piece of Mars: You can’t easily tell here, but you’re looking at a steep slope that is high at the bottom of the image and flattens out at the top of the image (the small dunes at the top […]
June 3, 2012

Active wind erosion

A piece of Mars: Bright rocks are being scoured and shaped by dark (bluish) sand. On Mars, active geologic activity is easy to identify: when there aren’t many craters visible, you’re probably looking at a surface that is undergoing change. […]