The bright barchan
Sometimes I just have no idea
February 9, 2015<<<<<<<<
March 9, 2015
A piece of Mars: Most dunes on Mars are dark, like these and these. So why is this one bright? It’s adjacent to a more typical, dark dune. It’s possible that there are two populations of sand here that are different enough in size or density, and so they respond to different winds – thus producing remarkably different dunes in the same location. (HiRISE ESP_039568_1120, NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona)
3 Comments
Hi Lori, looks like an orange peel! (Rind) However what actually caught my eye is what seems to be a Martian cirrus cloud??
There aren’t any clouds in this frame – what are you seeing?
Oh wait, I think I see what you’re seeing. The darker gray stuff on the top left, right? It has a ragged edge that makes it look like a cloud. Images are tricky like that. The gray stuff is actually the surface underlying the bright dune. Follow the link in the post to the HiRISE image page (the image ID number) and you can see the whole thing there. That will help you get some context for this dune.