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AFTER MORE THAN three years on the Martian surface, the car-sized Curiosity Mars rover is giving us a close-up glimpse of terrain unlike anything we’ve seen before: tall, ripple-ridden sand dunes like this one:
Satellites orbiting Mars have snapped photos of these sand dunes before, but never up close like this:
And NASA scientists are incredibly excited because it’s the first time anyone has had the chance to study active sand dunes beyond Earth.
One of the first things they want to explore is the “grain size and morphology of different parts of the slipface,” Lauren Edgar, a member of the Curiosity team and a USGS Astrogeology Science Centre research geologist, wrote in a mission update.
The ripples on these dunes change over time due to Martian winds and mini avalanches. Notice in the picture below the breaks in the ripple pattern near the top:
These breaks happen after Martian winds deposit sand on the slope, where it gradually accumulates. Eventually, so much sand builds up that the sand underneath can’t sustain the weight of the sand on top, and a mini avalanche occurs.
On Earth, this sort of thing usually happens on wind-protected slopes, leading NASA scientists to conclude the side of this dune, called Namib Dune, is also shielded from the wind.
For comparison, the wind-facing side of another nearby dune reveals a very different sand pattern:
Click here to view a larger image
Namib Dune is between 13 and 17 feet tall and is just one of many sand dunes located in the Bagnold Dunes field situated along the northwestern flank of the base of Mount Sharp, which forms Gale Crater’s central peak.
Gale Crater is initially where Curiosity first touched down back in 2012. Here’s a map of where Curiosity landed in the upper right, and where it has gone over the last 1196 sols, or Martian days:
And here’s a better view of the environment, with Namib Dune on the right:
Mount Sharp is a 3.4-mile-high mountain that NASA’s Curiosity team has been dreaming of exploring for a long time. They first snapped a photo of Mt Sharp with Curiosity’s Hazard-Avoidance camera in 2012 — that’s Mt Sharp in the distance:
Though NASA scientists haven’t seen sand avalanches or ripple movement, yet, Edgar is hopeful:
“We’ll be in the same location for a little while, so hopefully we’ll have the chance to observe some sand movement!”
In the mean time, we can sit back and enjoy some amazing photos, like this breath-taking panoramic view of Curiosity’s rover deck, Namib Dune in the middle, and Mount Sharp’s peak in the background:
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Truly amazing pictures, incredible work NASA
Man will one day live on Mars but only after he sends an army of Robots there first to construct a living habitat I’e a city plus food producing plants, very possible but it won’t happen tomorrow or the day after its a long way off.
Your welcome.
who in God’s name would want to live there
Paddy it’s not about wanting to live there, it’s about having to live there.
Not a chance we will ever live on Mars. No commercial incentive to develop habitats there, and governments certainly don’t have the money to do it.
Paddy,it’s fairly likely that man will be going to Mars in the 2030′s.The Americans,Russians,Chinese and the European Space Agency all said they want to send man there and have said that it will be most likely the 30′s so the race is unofficially on.The Russians even carried out a ‘pretend’ trip a while back called Mars 500.Check it out.
Cal, people in our lifetime won’t but who says we’ll still be in that position in 2090 or 3016. You hardly think we’ll always be on this planet, which becomes more uninhabitable every day, do you?
I think JFK said something about that…
Remember – if you see one set of footprints, it’s because the Sandpeople walk in single file to hide their numbers…
They frighten easily but will return, and in Greater numbers
They are the ones wearing the kilts but don’t like the sound of bagpipes
Grateful to be living in the space exploration age.
Fantastic photos!
Amazing
Where’s Matt Damon???
D’uh! he’s the one holding the camera.
That’s not a mountain it is a wave
Amazing and exciting stuff. Thank you NASA.
Brilliant!
Severe lack of selfies.
How soon will we be sending our rubbish up there, to save bin charges
At least we wouldn’t get flooded there
So what gas is the wind made up of? I thought there was no atmosphere on mars, but obviously there was is if there is wind.
Mostly carbon dioxide.
(Sorry for the repeat post, I pressed “submit” too early)
Mars has an atmosphere, but it’s very thin and totally incapable of supporting human life. But it’s enough to have storms, wind etc. Evidence points towards it having a thicker, Earth-like atmosphere billions of years ago. However, the lack of a magnetic field meant that the atmosphere was stripped by solar winds, resulting in the frozen dessert we see now.
Mars is such a fascinating place.
Thanks.
Another mad thing about Mars is it has a volcano which is 16 miles high,almost 3 times the height of Everest.Imagine standing at the foot of that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons
It looks earth-like.
It is anything but.
It makes the South Pole here on earth seem like the tropics.
It has no Ozone Layer or Van Allen Belts.
Cosmic radiation lethal to humans reaches the surface.
You cannot even take a breath in that atmosphere.
As David Bowie sang:
“Mars ain’t the place to raise your kids”.
That was Elton John, not DB.
The centimetre scale on image no.4 is obviously wrong, if it was in kilometres it might make more sense.
Love stuff like this! Nice work!
..anyone else disappointed with the fact the the sand isn’t red ??
How long would it take to corrupt that planet if man ever lands there ? Cynical Sunday, I’ll b grand once I eat..
NASA = fake
At least theres no floods….
There is no ‘wind’ in space. It’s a ridiculous assertion. These so called sand dunes are clearly alien made or fake.
I don’t believe this was made by Martian ‘wind’ especially when we know there is no oxygen on Mars. It looks obviously like it was built by intelligent beings.
have your say