October 15th, 2009
Amazing and Marvelous Mars Dunes
Written by Nancy Atkinson
I see the Bad Astronomer has beat me to the punch by posting this image before I could. But what an amazing and gorgeous image of dunes on Mars! However, my initial thought when I saw this on the HiRISE webpage was perhaps this was the first long-awaited look at Phil's tattoo. Seriously, doesn't this look like it could be body art? The dunes even have a Phil-like flesh color. But this wonderful image was taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. There is a great database of dune images gathered for the US Geological Survey on the HiRISE website, and below, take a gander at more lovely dune images:
Click on each image to learn more from the HiRISE website.
More Martian dunes from HiRISE.
Dunes in the Western Nereidum Montes. Credit: NASA/JPL University of Arizona
Sand dunes. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Dark dunes. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Check out the HiRISE website for more great images from Mars!
Filed under: Mars
Tags: HiRISE, Mars, MRORelated stories on Universe Today
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October 15th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Stunning! The 'Hubble' of planetary exploration just keeps coming up with the goods.
October 16th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Makes me want to be there more than ever.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:33 am
first picture looks like a spider on a field of grass. There you have it, Life on Mars! Case closed. Let's move on elsewhere.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Now that is some good pics. Quite artistic to believe true.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Pretty!
[And I doesn't say that just because I got afflicted by "boobedolia".
]
October 16th, 2009 at 10:28 am
That first image made me think at first I had logged onto the wrong website again.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
The sinuous patterns in the first image are caused by Dust Devils, right? That seems to explain most of the marking, but the 'piano board' looking ribbon of material traversing the landscape is quite mysterioso!
October 16th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
@Aqua, I've seen this feature explained as the result of the bright overlying dust cascading down a steep slope exposing the underlying dark sand dunes. Check out Phil's Bad Astronomy site (link in article above) for an explanation of the horizontal 'piano board' feature. What a phantasmagorical world.