Space explorers have been focusing on the existence of water for years Mars planet. It is believed that many astronauts saw water on the planet simply because there were so many ‘canals’.
However, now the attention has shifted to another element which may be a common link between Mars and Earth.
A new study is looking at wind phenomena on Mars to understand what happens when two dunes collide there.
The findings of the study, conducted by Mackenzie Day of the University of California Los Angeles, were published in the journal ‘Geology’.
Dunes develop when wind-blown sand settles into patterns, most often in deserts and arid or semi-arid parts of the world. There are mound fields on every continent on Earth, but sand patterns like mounds and mounds are also found in the Solar System.
On Earth, weather stations measure wind speed and direction, allowing us to predict and understand airflow in the atmosphere.
“On Earth, we know that dunes collide, join, join, and merge all the time. This is why the dune-field pattern changes over time. When this happens, the dune- Dune contact leaves behind a characteristic pattern in the sand, but that pattern is usually covered by actively moving sand and is difficult to see without specialized equipment,” Day said.
On Mars, many dunes look and behave similar to dunes on Earth, but in addition, Mars hosts patterns of organized sand that are dune-like but with some differences that are not yet explained by the scientific community. Is. Whether or not these unusual features, sometimes called “transverse aeolian ridges” or “mega waves”, form like dunes, has long been debated.
“In this work, I show that these unusual wind-blown sand ridges sometimes show on their surfaces the pattern that forms when two dunes meet,” Day said.
In the Iphagia region of Mars, the transverse aeolian ridges include both light and dark sand, leading to light-dark banding along the ridges. Banding occurring on only one side of the ridges suggests banding formed as the ridges migrate. In addition, dune-interaction patterns known from Earth can be observed in some ridges where the banding is shortened and then rejoined, as the two dunes touch down and then combine downwind.
The pattern associated with dune interactions only forms when two mounds meet, so observing it in these Martian sand ridges suggests that these enigmatic features (like those shown in the attached image) behave like dunes on Earth.
“Like dunes on Earth, transverse aeolian ridges on Mars migrate, combine and develop complex patterns in response to wind,” Day said.
Transverse aeolian ridges are incredibly common on Mars, and the results of this work allow us to better interpret the wind on Mars’ surface using these dune-like features.
“Overall, this work leverages both the knowledge of Mars and the knowledge of Earth to understand the second planet and opens the door to improving how we interpret the wind in further planetary bodies in the Solar System. are,” Day concluded.
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