dunes
May 23, 2012
A piece of Mars: Old, subdued dunes (in blue) near the south pole on Mars. This shows the edge of a dune field, with white rock-strewn surface beyond the sand. Criss-crossing the sand are the tracks that dust devils have […]
May 22, 2012
A piece of Mars: This is what dunes look like when they die. At least on Mars. On Earth they typically get buried or eroded away. On Mars geology works slowly enough that the steep slopes of dunes are gradually […]
May 13, 2012
A piece of Mars: In nature most dunes pile on one another or strongly influence each other. But occasionally, like a perfect flower or crystal, you find a perfectly shaped dune. Here is a crescentic dune, called a “barchan”, formed […]
May 10, 2012
A piece of Mars: The dunes can be so beautiful on Mars. What a lovely vacation spot this would be, provided you brought a large supply of oxygen, food, and a heat source to keep you warm. (HiRISE ESP_026416_1620)
May 9, 2012
A piece of Mars: This is what dunes look like in the deepest part of Mars, where the air is full of bright dust that constantly settles out onto everything. The wind helps to clear off the sand dunes (blue […]
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 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 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 29, 2012
These dunes are quite unusual for Mars, and difficult to interpret. The thick blue and white stripes are dunes in their current location, but subtle stripes above them seem to indicate former positions of dunes, small pieces that got left […]