September 30, 2013
A piece of Mars: These sharp-tipped hills are dunes near the north pole of Mars. At the height of summer they’re lovely dark dunes, but because it’s just barely spring here they’re still covered in white frost (mostly CO2 ice, […]
September 23, 2013
The new favorite is “A Bushel and a Peck”. The first half dozen times it was cute. No, really.
September 18, 2013
A piece of Mars: All that sand on Mars — where does it come from? It’s often hard to figure that out. Here is a rare case where we can see material shedding from a stack of bright layered rocks, […]
September 4, 2013
A piece of Mars: In the center are two dark dunes, racing one another to jump over hurdles formed of older, now inactive dunes (or maybe those bright things are ripples, we still don’t know for sure). The dune in […]
August 29, 2013
A piece of Mars: These C and S-shaped things were once dunes that marched across the scene (from upper left to lower right), formed from sand deposited by the wind. Then that sand somehow became cemented, locking the dunes in […]
August 21, 2013
A piece of Mars: Abstract modern art? No, these are north polar dunes almost completely covered in winter frost (mostly CO2 ice). It’s early spring in this image, and the dark sand underneath the ice is only just beginning to […]
August 8, 2013
A piece of Mars: Creamy dunes (or maybe they’re very large ripples) wind their way northward between mesas. More recently darker, more mobile sand (bluish here) has piled up against the western slopes of the mesas. We don’t know why […]
July 29, 2013
A piece of Mars: This image is way up high on the Tharsis Montes on Mars, at an elevation of 5900 m (19,350 ft). At night the wind comes screaming down from some of the tallest mountains in the Solar […]
July 8, 2013
A piece of Mars: The blue structures are rippled dunes found not far from the south polar cap of Mars. They are probably partially active, enough to create the fine ripples found on and between the dunes. But the steeper […]