The crazy laciness of martian TARs

A Piece of Mars: Take a look at the windblown stuff in this 0.55×0.625 km (0.34×0.39 mi) scene. Those are intricate patterns of a sort of dune-ripple thing that forms all over on Mars, but not so much on Earth. We call them TARs (transverse aeolian ridges, here are some other examples) because we’re still not sure what they are: dunes or ripples or something else? They’re beautiful, they reflect wind patterns in ways we don’t yet understand, and they might make up a large part of the martian sedimentary rock record. Be glad it’s not your job to try to tease all that out, these things are complex. (HiRISE ESP_051129_1705, NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona)