Black and tan

A Piece of Mars: Dunes in the top row in this 0.73×0.47 km (0.46×0.29 mi) scene are dark but those in the lower row are brighter. Why? They’re all probably made out of the same kind of sand, which is dark. And they all probably got covered by fine-grained airfall dust, which is bright. At some point after that, a wind blew, probably from top to bottom of the view, and moved enough sand to kick off the fine bright dust. But the relief from those top dunes took energy from the wind, so that by the time it reached the lower row, it wasn’t strong enough to move sand anymore. So until the next windstorm, we see two different colors of dunes. (HiRISE ESP_052399_1885, NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona)