Monthly Archives
Today I’ve got something different. Today NASA announced the discovery of hydrated salts in some dark slope features that form during the spring on Mars. These “recurring slope lineae”, or RSLs, were discovered a few years back, and they form on steep slopes every spring in a few places on Mars. There’s been a big
A Piece of Mars: In this 676×380 m (0.42×0.24 mi) scene, the high-standing hills here were all carved by sandblasting, by a wind that probably blew from right to left. Ripples in the valleys show that this erosion is still occurring today. (HiRISE ESP_041864_1745, NASA/JPL/Uni. of Arizona)
A piece of Mars: Not all sand piles up into big dunes. If the grains are the wrong grain size (too fine or too coarse), then it might just form sand sheets with ripples on top, like it does here, slowly migrating from top left to bottom right. There are two different kinds of sand