Mars' northern-most sand dunes are beginning to emerge from their winter cover of seasonal carbon dioxide (dry) ice. Dark, bare south-facing slopes are ...
Hey Lee! I miss you and it's your birthday so I wrote you a song. I'm a crap singer, I haven't been playing guitar long, and it's the first song I've written but I hope ...
STEPHANIE!!! GEEKY FRUIT DORK!!! FELLOW TALL PERSON!!! You outdid yourself
this time, my good friend, my great friend, my best friend, Stephanie! I
CANNOT believe this! YOU are INCREDIBLE! Words cannot describe... I
laughed, I smiled, I yelped, I screamed, (I can't truly say that I cried)
but WOW! Great job! I'm going to watch that like ten more times, tonight.
You always know how to bring a smile to my face, thank you so much. I can't
wait to see you. Shanghai = $937 RT. Can I come visit?
Just the basics about sedimentary rocks and fossils. #khanacademytalentsearch Video & photo credits in order of appearance: "Göbekli Tepe" by Rolfcosar ...
Dorothy "Dottie" Metcalf-Lindenburger, the daughter of two teachers with a love of the space program, has "The Right Stuff." As a NASA astronaut who flew with ...
This is very cool, I'm retiring from the military and going back to school
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certainly i inspires me to pursue that next step. Thanks Dottie!
Consequences of the oil spill on the Gulf Coast environment revealed
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UND Funding & Naming of the 'Harold Hamm School of Geology and Geological Engineering'
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Mars Geology: Changing Mars
This image of a wind streak monitoring site northwest of Uranius Tholus shows dramatic differences from earlier images and evidence for two distinct processes ...
This image of a wind streak monitoring site northwest of Uranius Tholus
shows dramatic differences from earlier images and evidence for two
distinct processes of
Martian wind erosion.
Located near the northern end of the Tharsis rise at a moderate elevation
(1800 meters above datum), the site is in a region of high albedo and low
thermal inertia that suggest a thick mantle of dust. The first subimage
shows (
//static.uahirise.org/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_016700_2075_1.jpg)
some of the changes that have occurred since the site was last imaged in
January, 2009 (Sample of Wind Streak Monitoring Site Northwest of Uranius
Tholus:
//hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/RDR/ESP/ORB_011400_011499/ESP_011465_2075/ESP_011465_2075_RED.browse.jpg).
Bright dust has been scoured from the surface by strong southerly winds
(blowing from the top right in these unprojected images). Bright streaks
trail downwind from impact craters, protected from the wind in the lee of
the crater rims. Sharp dark streaks edged upwind as the dust was stripped
away. At least two different episodes of erosion with slightly different
wind directions can be inferred from the orientations of the dark streaks.
Yet another wind direction is indicated by the few dune-like ripples that
can be seen in the floor of the valley. These features were shaped by much
older winds that were probably controlled by local topography.
The second subimage (
//static.uahirise.org/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_016700_2075_2.jpg)
shows the second erosion process, the tracks of dust-devils across the
newly cleaned surface (just south of the first subimage). What makes these
tracks interesting is that they are bright! Most dust-devil tracks on Mars
are dark, forming when a whirlwind lifts bright dust off the surface and
exposes a darker substrate. These tracks were neither visible in the
earlier HiRISE image, nor in an earlier image (Wind Streak Monitoring Site
Northwest of Uranius Tholus:
//hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/RDR/PSP/ORB_002200_002299/PSP_002222_2075/PSP_002222_2075_RED.browse.jpg)
acquired in January, 2007. The cause of the bright tracks is unclear.
Bright dust-devil tracks were also spotted by the Mars Orbital Camera in
southern Schiaparelli Crater, a region also dominated at the time by wind
streaks. One way to make bright tracks would be to excavate through dark
material (such as a lag of basaltic sand) to a brighter substrate. Another
possibility is that the dust-devils stir up the remaining pockets of bright
dust that are hiding from the prevailing winds in the shelter of
topographic obstacles.
Written by: Paul Geissler (29 August 2012)
See more videos about Mars Science Theme:
Aeolian Processes:
//www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6vzpF_OEV8nz-8JA_x0i4NxehJ3CDuh_
See more videos about Mars Reconnaissance Instrument
HiRISE, High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment:
//www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6vzpF_OEV8nfAL7zVkUWJpw-_9jkJjtZ
HiRISE, High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment:
"Explore Mars, one giant image at a time."
//www.uahirise.org/
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona