Unusual dune field on a crater floor in, part of the heavily cratered southern highland region of the planet Mars. The interesting patterns of the dunes themselves are contained within a boundary that is roughly hexagon-shaped. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University.Mars can be a weird place sometimes. Although there are many of the same atmospheric and geological processes as on Earth, they can take on unusual forms not seen on our planet. The Mars rovers have discovered, for one example, very that are common in Mars’ lower gravity and thinner atmosphere (although similar ones can be found on Earth as well).

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Mars is also covered in sand dunes, much like those in earthly deserts. NASA’s orbiter recently took photos of a dune field that – unlike any dune field seen on Earth – has a strange-looking, roughly hexagonal shape. It’s not a perfect hexagon, but close enough to make you take notice.The new photo was of the at Arizona State University (ASU) on February 14, 2019.The dune field is on a crater floor in the region, 68 degrees south of the equator, towards the south polar cap. This location on Mars, scientists believe, figures into the appearance of the dune field. As explained on ASU’s Flickr page.

Wider view of the strange hexagonal dune field on Mars. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University.There are also many tracks visible in the images. Dust devils are common on Mars, just as they are on Earth, despite Mars’ thinner atmosphere.

They have even been photographed in-action by the and rovers, as the dust devils raced across the Martian landscape.is a planetary geomorphologist at. She studies wind-formed features such as sand dunes. She commented on the hexagonal dune field on Twitter:Southern high latitude dunes seriously get their freak on. Nobody has yet tried to understand them. They know they're too cool for us anyway.— Lori Fenton (@LoriKFenton)As Fenton also noted, there is a second similar formation nearby, in another crater. Not quite as hexagonal, but still interesting.Yep.

Has got your back, here's a view. If you look at the whole dune field, it's not entirely hexagonal. I also included another crater nearby that also has an odd-shaped dune field.

DTM is from MOLA, rainbow goes from elevations 300 to 2700 m.— Lori Fenton (@LoriKFenton)As to how the dune fields formed the way they did, Fenton expressed some ideas via Twitter:Yeah, the crater shape is one factor shaping the dune field, and it also affects incident winds (blocks them or enhances them). The dunes this far south are partially stabilized, which interferes with that interpretation (which is already complex).There is also a of the dunes themselves, from the camera on NASA’s.Dunes are common on Mars, just as they are in deserts on Earth, and come in various shapes and sizes. Smaller are also common. Most of the landers and rovers on Mars have seen dunes and drifts up close, a chance to study them in detail as to their composition and how they can form – even up to about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, like ones in the Bagnold Dune Field seen by Curiosity – in such a thin atmosphere. Close-up view of the dunes themselves, from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image via NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.What makes these new dunes seen by Odyssey so peculiar is the overall shape of the dune fields themselves. Scientists, including Fenton, will examine them closely to figure out the processes involved in their formation.Fenton had also recently written about on her blog that has similar crisp edges, but a different shape. She proposed two ideas for how these types of southern latitude dune fields – slower and more eroded – form:1.

(Less interesting) Dunes and ripples are forming and moving at high southern latitudes, but because of the ground ice, they do so more slowly than dunes at lower latitudes. They’re born that way, baby. (On second thought, that’s still interesting, because it means high latitude dunes would then record wind patterns over a longer time period than low latitude dunes. But they’d be hard to interpret.)2. (More exciting) Dunes and ripples in the high southern latitudes formed long ago, in a climate state where the ground ice wasn’t yet formed, and have since become mostly locked in place. We’re essentially looking at fossil dunes.

That means their shape would record ancient wind patterns, which we could compare with modern winds to see how the climate state on Mars has changed. It means we could use dunes to study climate change on Mars. The huge, near-perfect hexagon at Saturn’s north pole, as seen by the Cassini spacecraft in 2014. Image via NASA.And what about that hexagonal shape? Are we surprised?

Hexagons can be found in other places in nature. Another striking example is the jet stream formation at Saturn’s north pole, which is a massive, centered at the pole itself. It’s absolutely astonishing.Read more about Lori Fenton’s work.Bottom line: These odd dune fields seen by the Odyssey orbiter – with one having a roughly hexagonal shape – are an interesting puzzle for planetary scientists, and are expected to help provide more clues about wind-driven dune formation processes on Mars. Paul Scott Anderson has had a passion for space exploration that began when he was a child when he watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. While in school he was known for his passion for space exploration and astronomy.

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He started his blog The Meridiani Journal in 2005, which was a chronicle of planetary exploration. In 2015, the blog was renamed as Planetaria. While interested in all aspects of space exploration, his primary passion is planetary science. In 2011, he started writing about space on a freelance basis, and now currently writes for AmericaSpace and Futurism (part of Vocal). He has also written for Universe Today and SpaceFlight Insider, and has also been published in The Mars Quarterly and has done supplementary writing for the well-known iOS app Exoplanet for iPhone and iPad.

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House Atreides can trace its lineage back to ancient Greece. Though the Expanded Dune universe by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson offers some contradicting dates and accounts to the Dune Encyclopedia the Encyclopedia provides the most comprehensive timeline of the dune universe. Though in the Original Frank Herbert Dune books Earth is lost in the mist of time the encyclopedia offers dates stretching all the way from humanities early beginnings on Earth to a few thousand years after the death of the God Emperor Leto the second, up until the in-universe publication of the encyclopedia itself in 15540 AG.Thanks for watching!Please consider supporting this channel on Patreon: me on Facebook!: free to leave a comment like and subscribe!Thanks For Watching!