ripples
October 5, 2015
A Piece of Mars: The dark dunes in this 0.96×0.54 km (0.60×0.34 mi) scene are slowly migrating towards the lower left. Look closer and you’ll see brighter ripples between the dunes – the biggest ones are ~8m (26 ft) apart. […]
September 7, 2015
A piece of Mars: Not all sand piles up into big dunes. If the grains are the wrong grain size (too fine or too coarse), then it might just form sand sheets with ripples on top, like it does here, […]
July 27, 2015
A piece of Mars: So much wind. There are dark swirly tracks of dust devils that have passed by, ripples covering dunes, wind scours around rocks, and of course dunes. Dune crests have a different color than other regions: are […]
April 19, 2015
A piece of Mars: This 300×300 m (984×984 ft) scene shows bright windblown dunes or ripples arrayed in a lacy pattern (the biggest ones are about 5 m, or 16 ft, across). This is near the landing site of Ares […]
April 10, 2015
A piece of Mars: Below this ~550 m (0.3 mi) wide crater lies a ~1.3 km (0.8 mi) long “beard”, the wake of an ancient flow around the crater. Based on its location on Mars, I’m guessing the fluid flowing […]
March 9, 2015
A piece of Mars: Ripples form endless chevrons in this 600×450 m (0.37×0.30 mi) scene. It’s really the crest of a dune that connects all the vertices in the chevrons, making that straight line that runs nearly vertical through the […]
February 2, 2015
A piece of Mars: What happens to dunes as they move over rough terrain? This is what a barchan looks like on a relatively flat surface. If the hills are smaller than the dune, then it does its best to […]
January 26, 2015
A piece of Mars: This scene (600×450 m or 1969×1476 ft) is covered in small craters, formed by the splash of a larger crater nearby. They cover everything, even the bright ripples visible on the right. So the ripples were […]
January 21, 2015
A piece of Mars: The curving ridge of a mountain has signs of many small landslides. Mantled on top of these is an older set of landslides that has been partially eroded away. The rippled edge of this older deposit […]
January 12, 2015
A piece of Mars: This 600×450 m (1969×1476 ft) scene has a complex sedimentary history. How are bearded craters and dunes formed? They weren’t always bearded. At some point, a deposit of bright material accumulated on this surface, and was […]
January 5, 2015
A piece of Mars: A long, low dune covered in long, linear ripples stretches across the scene (600×450 m; 1969×1476 ft). Dark gray areas on the dune show where sand has most recently moved. A small slip face has formed […]
December 19, 2014
A piece of Mars: Some time ago, something hit the ground on Mars and made this impact crater, right into a field of ripples. Stuff thrown up during the impact fell back down, burying the ripples with the gray ejecta […]