November 25, 2014

Panda stripe dustslides

A piece of Mars: This 600×450 m (1969×1476 ft) scene of a hillside shows new, dark dustslides that slid downhill (to the lower left). Faint stripes of older dustslides are visible, covered by bright dust and small ripples. Thousands of […]
November 17, 2014

Textured gullies

A piece of Mars. These are gullies on a martian hillside (upslope is to the upper right). Water may be what forms the channels, carrying soil and rocks downslope. The textured pattern of the lower slope is caused by the […]
November 7, 2014

Rivers of freezing gas

A piece of Mars: This 600×450 m (1969×1476 ft) polar scene shows sinuous channels 2-8 m (7-26 ft) wide carved out of ice-filled and ice-covered terrain. They’re not formed by flowing water, but instead by flowing gas that gets trapped […]
October 27, 2014

A way through

A piece of Mars: Wind ha blown the dark, rippled sand between jagged hills, from top to bottom in this frame (663 m or 2175 ft across). Regardless of the terrain, sand finds a way to get through — just […]
October 15, 2014

Huge wind-made cliffs

A piece of Mars: Topography in color is draped over an image of a windblown cliff. The entire shape of the landscape here was formed by wind, from the large 400 m (1312 ft) tall zigzag cliff, to the small […]
October 13, 2014

Mars is watching you…

A piece of Mars: This looks like a pair of eyes looking at us. It’s really some small brown hills, two of which (the “eyes”) are surrounded by dark gray sand that has blown into scours as the wind interacts […]
October 6, 2014

Almost a dune

A Piece of Mars: This field of 2 m wide sand ripples has a dark splotch in the middle (the scene is 300×225 m or 984×738 ft). The splotch is the peak of a low hill that straddles the classification […]
September 30, 2014

Lumpy bumpy dunes

A piece of Mars: These funny shaped dunes were formed by winds blowing from two directions – one from the top of the frame and one from the upper right. Both winds make steep slopes (slip faces) on the downwind […]
September 22, 2014

Changing winds

A piece of Mars: There are two sets of ripples here: tan ones and gray ones, each oriented to a different wind (scene is 300×225 m, or 984×738 ft). The gray ones sit on top of the tan ones, so […]