NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) delivers incredible insights into the Red Planet, often capturing compelling images. Mars, a cold desert, has sand dunes that form interesting shapes under certain conditions. The last image, taken just a few months ago, shows the unusual sand dunes that are almost completely circular.
“Dunes of many shapes and sizes are common on Mars. In this example, the dunes are almost completely circular, which is unusual,” wrote Alfred McEwen in the HiRISE blog post presenting this new image taken. “They’re a bit asymmetrical, suggesting that the sand generally moves south, but the winds can be variable.”
The image is part of a series of observations by the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE. This incredible camera studies changes in Mars’ Northern Hemisphere as winter slowly turns into spring. The area with the spotted dunes was originally covered with frost, but is no longer visible in the newer image taken on November 22, 2022.
HiRISE had previously detected complex sandy structures as well as moving dune trains. Its camera has a resolution of 30 centimeters per pixel. This means that we can see the Martian features quite clearly below one meter.
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