Still a Mystery to Me

As some of you may know from previous posts or conversations, I am studying our neighbor planet, Mars. In particular, I am quickly becoming an expert at looking at HiRISE images of gullies. This is one image I found on Friday which has left me quite intrigued for a number of reasons.

The first is the dark dunes in the north. I know very little about dunes, but the boundary seems so abrupt! Also, the gullies in the south are small and uniform. Gullies are very rarely (in my experience) as uniform as these are, especially considering the differing directions along the wall. Also the dark streaks under the landscape!

Basically a beautiful image you should all take a look at in more detail. If you actually look at the image through the HiRISE website (which I encourage lots of exploring) this is how I view the images, as downloading them usually takes quite a lot of time.

JP2 Quicklook – IAS viewer
full image grayscale, map projected

You may have to download IAS viewer but it’s totally worth it to look at other HiRISE images if you want. You can also see the image just by clicking on the preview, but you don’t get the delicate detail of it all unless you can zoom in.