Who would ever think that grit dunes could look so incredible ? In this beautiful persona , sand trapped in an impact volcanic crater in the Red Planet ’s Moachis Terra region have been sculpted by the wind of Mars into a Brobdingnagian and variegated landscape painting .
But photograph like this have far more to provide than their peach — they also allow scientists to canvass one of the libertine , most dynamic geologic physical process in the universe , providing us with unbelievable insights into Mars ’ chronicle .
More than 21,000 images have been captured byNASA ’s HiRISE telescopesince it began take pic of the Red Planet ’s airfoil in late 2006 . picture like the one up top [ hi - res usable here ] are of particular interest to scientists study what are known as “ aeolian processes ” — i.e. the study of landforms mold by wind ( Aeolus is the wind god in Greek mythology ) .
This is HiRISE , the most potent tv camera we ’ve ever send to another planet
Unlike many other geological summons , which can take hundreds of thousand of years to change in any dramatic or visibly noticeable way , the wind - crafted sands of Mars ’ surface are continually change at a pace so speedy , we ’ve cope to visualize their apparent movement even in the few short years we ’ve been observing them .
How fast various “ aeolian bedforms ” ( dune and wavelet ) migrate across the major planet ’s control surface , how quickly they settle into the planet ’s various topographic feature film , whether or not some bedforms even migrate at all — these are just a few examples of the questions global scientist are using images like this to sympathize ; and the answers they find will help us make sense of Mars ’ geologic and climatological past tense , present , and hereafter .
[ ViaNASA ]
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