Sand Dunes in Arabia Terra

I wanted to point out some features you might have noticed in the Planet Four: Ridges images. Dark wiggly blobs as shown in the images below are actually sand dunes on Mars.

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We’re showing images from orbit, but to give you a sense of what some of these might look like from the ground, here’s a selfie of Mars Curiosity at “Namib Dune”, part of the informally named Bagnold Dune Field located in Gale Crater. I learned recently that on Mars, sand dunes are black because they are made of ground up  basaltic lava rocks, just like black sand beaches of Hawaii are.

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Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

2 responses to “Sand Dunes in Arabia Terra”

  1. RB Nerf says :

    I had tagged a similar image as :beaded-terrain, but had begun to suspect :image-artifact. I went back and reviewed the original image and still couldn’t come down on the bad data conclusion. Glad to see my instinct isn’t entirely bad.

  2. Peter Jalowiczor says :

    Dunes may also be found on a handful of select bodies in our Solar System!

    Apart from Mars: Venus, our own Earth and Titan also hosts these features. All of course in conditions which are different and unique to the body in question…

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