stabilized
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 […]
January 27, 2014
A piece of Mars: Here are two craters, each of which is ~240 m across. On the right is an old, very eroded crater. It has old, eroded ripples on its floor. The crater on the left is younger, with […]
January 24, 2014
A piece of Mars: On Oct. 15, 2013, Curiosity drove past a crater that has small dunes or ripples on its floor. In a new HiRISE image, you can see Curiosity’s tracks from that day (its 424th sol on Mars). […]
December 23, 2013
A piece of Mars: Normally I post color images, but this one is just too cool to skip. These ripples formed ages ago: long enough ago that the impact of several small bolides formed craters (seen on the left), disrupting […]
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 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 […]
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 […]