Planet Mars: Mysterious, wind-blown features | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Transverse aeolian ridges—or TAR—are mysterious, wind-blown features that are intermediate in size between ripples and much larger sand dunes.
Ripples form from hopping sand grains, and dunes form from sand grains being blown over longer distances. One hypothesis for TAR formation is that larger grains like pebbles are rolled on top of smaller ripples. Then, finer dust settles into the cracks, “inflating” the pebbles, making the TAR larger than typical ripples.
Looking between the TAR, one sees a network of ancient, beaten-up channels that were carved by water, lava, or both.
This whole area is located in Solis Planum, an interesting, tectonic terrain south of Noctis Labryinthus that generally slopes toward the south. Solis Planum is a planum on Mars which has a diameter of 1811.23 km. Its center latitude is 26.4 S and its center longitude is 270.33 E. Noctis Labyrinthus (Latin for 'Labyrinth of the Night') is a region of Mars located in the Phoenicis Lacus quadrangle, between Valles Marineris and the Tharsis upland. The region is notable for its maze-like system of deep, steep-walled valleys.
This HiRISE enhanced color camera image (less than 1 km in size) was captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) at an altitude of 252 km (~157 miles).
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has spent over twenty years (2006-2026) orbiting the Red Planet, collecting valuable scientific data.
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). It was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), Washington.
Image Date: Aug. 30, 2015
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