Rough hide of Mars

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

From orbit, some land­scapes of Mars resem­ble a rough ani­mal hide. Explore this image from the HiRISE cam­era aboard Mars Recon­nais­sance Orbiter and you can find just about every type of sand dune known to exist. What shapes and sto­ries can your imag­i­na­tion dream up from this image? Share a note below.

Sci­en­tists call the dunes in the cen­ter of this image par­a­bolic dunes. On Earth, par­a­bolic dunes are cre­ated where some veg­e­ta­tion holds part of the dune edge in place. There is no plants or veg­e­ta­tion on Mars to hold the sand and dust. In the hol­low of this crater, shift­ing winds likely push sand in all direc­tions result­ing in these dunes. Travel to the upper right part of the image and explore the lin­ear and cres­cent dunes. In the plains in the upper left of the image, you can find lon­gi­tu­di­nal dunes. These dunes extend for long dis­tances and become longer with the wind. As you pass across the moun­tain­ous land­scape, look for out­crops that form the cen­ter of a dune pin­wheel. Some­times wind cur­rents swirl around these hills cre­at­ing the sand dunes.

The crater cen­tral to this image is spe­cial in itself. Plan­e­tary geol­o­gists call it a cen­tral pit crater. Sci­en­tists do not know exactly how they form but they could be cre­ated when gases escape from the cen­tral peak after a mete­orite impact caus­ing the peak to collapse.

Launched with Mars Recon­nais­sance Orbiter, or MRO, in 2005, HiRISE is one of six instru­ments aboard the space­craft orbit­ing Mars. HiRISEs cam­era can see objects on the sur­face as small as a beach ball. The instru­ment can also offer sci­en­tists stereo views of the surface.

Comments

S 20-04-2011, 10:18

Or it looks like mam­ma­tus clouds, jsut before or after a big storm…

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Send

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.