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PIA19302: Dunes in Western Medusae Fossae Formation

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows dark dunes in the western Medusae Fossae. This image shows no large dunes, but many of the dark sand patches cover slopes up to discrete layers.

Target Name:	Mars
Is a satellite of:	Sol (our sun)
Mission:	Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Spacecraft:	Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Instrument:	HiRISE
Product Size:	2880 x 1800 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	University of Arizona/HiRISE-LPL
Other Information:	Other products from image ESP_039240_1730
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA19302.tif (15.56 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA19302.jpg (697.2 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

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The dark dunes in the western Medusae Fossae formation provide some evidence of having a local origin.

This image shows no large dunes, but many of the dark sand patches cover slopes up to discrete layers. It is possible that the sand is eroding out from those layers, but slopes can also act as sand traps.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Image Addition Date:

2015-03-04