May 8, 2012
A piece of Mars: Patterns within patterns (metapatterns?). These small martian dunes shown an unusual complexity in their crossing lines, indicating that they were formed by winds from several directions (and it is likely that those winds changed over time). […]
May 7, 2012
A piece of Mars: We are looking way up high on Arsia Mons, one of the tallest mountains in the Solar System (its summit is ~19 km high — Mt. Everest tops out at 8.848 km; the location of this […]
May 6, 2012
A piece of Mars: It’s high summer in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Here, dark dunes near the north pole have finally lost the seasonal ice that blankets them and turns them white for most of the year. For a […]
May 4, 2012
Today I became the deputy manager of the Planetary Landscapes Facebook page. Looks like it will be fun, and I hope it won’t take up too much time. I do like the idea of sharing all of the beauty of […]
May 3, 2012
A piece of Mars: Here are some lovely ripples on Mars. In the same field of ripples, there are large wavy white ones and small complex blue ones. Why are there two different types, made distinct by their color, size, […]
May 2, 2012
A piece of Mars: Today’s image comes courtesy of my postdoc, Simone Silvestro. He’s studying migrating dunes and has made a 3 image movie of a dune moving across the […]
May 2, 2012
I just submitted a review of a very long paper. In science we spend a good amount of time doing “peer review”, which means we look over every piece of work to be published by our colleagues to try to […]
May 1, 2012
A piece of Mars: Mottled dunes hint at different wind gusts, in this field of dunes located near the landing site for the next rover to go to Mars (named Curiosity). The bluish areas are most likely the more recently […]
April 30, 2012
A piece of Mars: Of Sandy Lanes. The yellowish-tan rocks are tall high-standing hills that have been scoured by the wind. Dark sand slowly cuts down the whiter rocks in the valleys, slowly creating majestic lanes bordered by steep, sharp […]