complex wind
August 14, 2014
A piece of Mars: Dunes outside the crater are straight but the ones inside the crater look like a spiderweb. Why? This image shows just how much the topography of a crater wall can affect the wind, which produces a […]
July 8, 2014
A piece of Mars: Using dunes to interpret the winds can be a tricky business. Here’s one reason why: most of the dunes here go from the upper left to lower right. But the ones inside the funky oblong crater […]
October 25, 2013
A piece of Mars: Barchan, or crescent dunes, are generally thought to form from winds blowing from a single direction. Reality isn’t usually that nice. Here are two barchans with crescent-shaped slip faces on their eastern (right) sides, indicating that […]
June 21, 2013
A piece of Mars: Yep, these are dunes shaped into polygons. Each “cell” is about 25 m (~80 ft) across. The crests of these things are outlined in blue, as if somebody traced them with a pen (well it’s stretched […]