ripples
June 13, 2014
A piece of Mars: Which way did the wind blow here? You can tell by looking at the dune and its ripples. The slip face (the avalanching slope of the dune) faces downwind, so the strongest wind here mainly blows […]
May 19, 2014
A piece of Mars: Several years ago, a guy named Richard Hoagland claimed that some parallel linear features on Mars looked like the ridges of a transparent earthworm, calling these things “glass worms”. Phil Plait debunked it nicely, but Hoagland […]
May 12, 2014
A piece of Mars: It’s similar to my last post, but I love these wind tails. This is a tiny bit of the eastern slope of the gigantic volcano, Olympus Mons. The dusty surface has been covered by boulders (the […]
April 28, 2014
A piece of Mars: This shows the location of the rover Opportunity as of late March, 2014. It’s been trolling around the rim of Endeavour crater. Just inside the crater, there are some large ripples (the biggest is ~10 m […]
April 21, 2014
A piece of Mars: Now here’s something that, as far as I know, can safely be labeled as “uniquely martian”. These dunes (or maybe they’re ripples) are ~25 m wide, and have formed from winds blowing from the upper left. […]
April 4, 2014
A piece of Mars: This 521×391 m (1709×1283 ft) scene shows a rocky plain with many small impact craters (the bigger ones are ~45 m, or 148 ft across). Dark rippled sand fills the floors of the craters. Why? Once […]
March 24, 2014
A piece of Mars: Looks like a millipede, doesn’t it? It’s something much larger and much less poisonous. It’s an ancient dune (or maybe a ripple) on Mars, that once stretched ~285 m (935 ft) from lower left to middle […]
March 17, 2014
A piece of Mars: Bet you didn’t know there were ribbons on Mars. Long, sweeping, velvety lines, delicately frayed at the ends. These are actually ancient ripples, formed by a wind blowing from right to left. Stripes on the ripples […]
March 10, 2014
A piece of Mars: It’s winter in the southern hemisphere, and dunes like these are covered in bright white CO2 frost. The sun is near the horizon (shining from the top of the image), so it creates stark shadows. That […]