I know, I’ve been posting a lot about Mars images lately, but I can’t help it. They’re so pretty!
But I think I have a favorite now. Check out this HiRISE image of Mars dunes:
Mmmmmmm. Prettttty. I love so much about this picture. The flowing shapes, geometric yet still smooth and somehow sensual, like a very expensive velvet fabric. The steel grey color and the tonal contrast washes over my eye. And then, of course, is the knowledge that these are wind-swept dunes of iron-laden sand, an aeolian deposit of alien dust upon an extraterrestrial surface.
Sigh.
Some art loses its integrity of you look too closely, but nature is still better at this than we are. Let your mind zoom down into the images, and see what details lurk therein:
There is fine rippling of the sand between the dunes, and the ridges still bear out their sharp contours. How lovely! And it does nothing to subtract from its beauty to know that at the time this images was taken, the ground temperature was something like -100 ℃.
And even this is not the sharpest image; there is a 13000 x 21000 (108 Mb) image of this as well on the HiRISE site. Remember– the smallest features you see in this image are a meter or two across.
Funny– meteorite geek that I am, the first thing I thought of when I saw this picture was how much it looked like a Sikhote-Alin meteorite, an iron meteorite that impacted in Russia in 1947:
The dunes have nothing to do with the meteorite, but the shapes in the image and the color are strikingly similar. Of course, the Mars image is grayscale, and the real color of the surface there is probably reddish or tan. But that’s OK, it takes nothing away from the picture’s beauty.
Sikhote-Alin is my favorite kind of meteorite, so this Mars picture has meaning for me that way as well. Now, I just have to let Mrs. BA let me make a print of it and hang it somewhere in the house, preferably next to my meteorite collection …
December 8th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
What is the mechanism for the formation of these dunes?
December 8th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Miller, the HiRISE site says:
The largest high resolution image is great – very cool. I wouldn’t have had a clue as to what it was had I not been told…the dunes looks so shiny.
December 8th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
These pictures remind me of chocolate ice-cream.
December 8th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Why is the meteorite so pocketed? Should it not be more homogeneously smoothed?
Whats the physical answer to this? I know there is one, I just know I dont know it.
December 8th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
When you look at some portions of the hi-res image you can see lips and noses and faces.
Hah…it’s funny how the mind tries to find such patterns.
December 8th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
I see a woman’s face from the side, like she’s laying on a pillow in the second image. almost looks like she’s kissing someone…haha.
December 8th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Those dunes look very…tasty.
December 8th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
> I know, I’ve been posting a lot about Mars images lately, but I can’t help it. They’re so pretty!
And please keep it up. Looking at them I have this incredible feeling of sheer awe that we humans are able to do something as amazing as this: taking pictures of such beauty and in such high resolution and sending them back over millions of miles for me to see on my monitor…
December 8th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Patrick Says: “I see a woman’s face from the side, like she’s laying on a pillow in the second image. almost looks like she’s kissing someone.”
Although she has really bad skin or big, bushy sideburns
- Jack
December 8th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
It looks like an abstract painting. I’m getting great chunks of M C Esher off this picture – have a look at http://www.mcescher.com for comparison.
December 8th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
The spice must flow.
December 8th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Wow! It would be very interesting to hike a little ways into that area. (Of course, I’d have to bring a jacket.)
December 8th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
What is the mechanism for the formation of these dunes?
Wind, unless something really bizarre is going on.
There’s some lovely patterning in these… they mostly look like transverse dunes, which are the normal kind you find in “dune seas.” Beautiful!
And here’s a wikipedia article, just in case anyone’s curious about dunes in general. I just wish the article had more aerial photos…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune
December 8th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
It looks wet. Is that from that recent gush?
December 8th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Santa Claus on big pic 1/3 of the way down and 2nd dune in. Do you see it? Or maybe it’s Darwin with a hoody.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Wait! I see Worm signs!
Hehe, couldn’t help it. I’m surprised no one even made that sort of comment yet.
Anyway, fantastic looks at Mars! Make one want to just go there and see the deserts first hand. Given me them mountains and canyons too!
December 8th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Okay, Grand Lunar. Since you opened this particular…can…perhaps the liquid water flow mentioned a few posts back was really a containment failure at the local sietch?
December 9th, 2006 at 5:06 am
They look like they were taken by Ansel Adams!
December 9th, 2006 at 6:12 am
What do you refer to, ABR?
You do know I was making a joke, referring to Frank Herbert’s novel, right?
December 9th, 2006 at 7:13 am
I see a face! I see a face! A face in the sand dunes! Does anyone else see a face? Proof of extraterrestrial life at last!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
December 9th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Absolutely spectacular.
December 9th, 2006 at 7:31 am
Kul wuhad!
December 9th, 2006 at 9:39 am
kowabunga—-wheeewww—-dumbstruck!!!
i cannot think of science right now, the is art through nature.
Jimi Hendrix had a song with the following lyrics:
Castles made of sand fall into the sea eventually….
December 9th, 2006 at 10:02 am
As was I, Grand Lunar. You just beat me to it.
And jasonB…Kul wahad, indeed!
December 9th, 2006 at 10:23 am
[...] “Dune Mars“, no Bad Astronomy; [...]
December 9th, 2006 at 10:40 am
Sand surfing, anyone?
In the empty quarter(the Rub AL Khali) of southeast Arabia, there are red dunes 800 feet tall and not a drop of rain has been recorded in the past century. I wonder if that could be a good starting point for researchers trying to determine if man can survive in the Martian equivelant? Of course, there are differences between these and those of MArs. For one, there’s good air and another it’s typically over 130 degress F. in the summer(measured at up to 134).
Gary 7
December 9th, 2006 at 10:48 am
I didn’t understand the reference you made, ABR. Guess I’m not as familar with “Dune” as you may be (I only know of the 1980s film and the on Sci-Fi did).
*sigh* I wish that ‘A Ler’ guy would quit trolling here.
December 9th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Wow—if someone had shown me that picture and asked me to guess what it was, I would have probably thought was some sort of scanning tunnelling electron microphotograph…Martian sand dunes would never have occurred to me.
December 9th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
A Sietch is the caverns the Fremen lived in. They usualy had a cistern where water condensed from the air was stored.
December 9th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Also, I don’t think A Ler is trolling. He is posting a link to this article on his blog, and this one must be setup to post a summary of his link. (There is a blog-term for this system, but I can’t remember it at the moment.)
December 9th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
I went to the link’s site, and looked at his bio. I think it’s in Portugese, but it might as well be Greek ’cause I can’t read it anyway. And to think my grandparents refused to teach me Swedish and Finnish because they wanted to be sure we grandkids were 100% American…
December 9th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Thanks, Nerull. Makes sense now!
I only thought that ‘A Ler’ was trolling because it seems he was criticizing the BA for posting topics that are appearently don’t relate to “bad astronomy”.
Shows the difficulty of not having the guy write in english so we call can understand.
Also, one post he did looked as if he was being critical of the subject matter.
December 9th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Guys, “A Ler” wasn’t being critical at all. He was just posting a link to his blog. “No” is “in” in Portuguese. BTW, he has the Ann Druyan article posted that was in this month’s Planetary Report – nice piece on her late husband, Carl Sagan.
See his page here to read it:
http://rastosdeluz.astronomo-amador.com/?p=384
December 9th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Right; he is not trolling at all! The term, by the way, is a TrackBack. When he posted about this entry in his blog (and used the trackback), the BA blog generated that comment. I admit it can be confusing, though you can usually tell trackbacks by the “[...]†they use to indicate that an excerpt of the other entry is being posted here. Incidentally, I believe â€A Ler†is the title of his post, and probably means something like “to read.†He’s promoting BA, not criticizing it.
December 9th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Sorry all. My fault for sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.
Now, I shall go enjoy my humble pie.
*slinks away*
December 10th, 2006 at 8:19 am
I bet there are giant worms living under those dunes, much like (duh) the books “Dune.”
December 10th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
For those running Windows who don’t want to download the viewer mentioned in the previous posting abut Hires Mars images the full blown .JP2 images can be viewed in Irfanview as long as its plugins pack is installed. And, oh wow, they do look even more amazing when you zoom in on different areas.
December 11th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Puts me in mind of Salvador Dali
http://www.dali-gallery.com/images/works/1981_01.jpg
December 11th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Nice photo! Appropriately rotated and scaled, it’s my new desktop background. (Replacing Ambulocetus, but only because it’s more abstract and thus less distracting for those rare moments when my screen isn’t covered in windows.)
December 11th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Those pictures are beautiful, as are all the other Mars pictures that have been on here lately. Yes, keep them coming. It’s so nice to catch up on science news quickly by coming to the BA website. I often forward links of these pictures (of Mars, Saturn, etc.) to friends at work and fellow-astronomy club members. It’s one of the more successful ways to get others interested in astronomy (or to keep fellow astronomy geeks happy).
Thanks for the pictures, and keep showing us more!
Astrogirl
December 12th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Reminds me of the Mundrabilla meteorite they’ve got in the entrance lobby to the South Australian museum. Similar texture that looks all fluid. Every time I visit there I touch it just to have tactile contact with an object that orbited our Sun independently for aeons before falling through our atmosphere, glowing red-hot, the edges sizzling and becoming molten from the re-entry heat. It blows me away every time.
‘Seitch’ I think meant village as much as cavern in ‘Dune’ – tehfRemen were descendents froma ZenSunni (or was it Zen Sufi) diaspora which I take it means some sort of confluence / symbiosis of “Zen” (buddhist philosophy) and “Sunni” the mainstream version of Islam. An interesting fusion of religions. A lot of the terms used by “Fremen” (ie. ‘Free men’) were adopted I think from Arabic which make sense considering the environment.
Oh, & the star “Dune” orbited was Arrakis which is the old Arabic name for Nu Draconis, visible to you Northern hemisphere-ers as a circumpolar star (spectral type A I think ie like Sirius, Vega and Altair) near the north celstial pole (UrsaMinor -lil’ dipper & polaris) Which means, of course, that here in Adelaide, South Oz, I can’t see it. Still I’d take having the Southern Cross, Magellanic Clouds, the two best globular clusters and Eta Carinae
in my skies over Draco, Polaris and the two Bears (Ursa’s major & minor) anyday!
Hope that’s interesting / amusing /enlightening / fun for y’all..
December 13th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Stevo,
You may want to pull out your copy of Dune. The names “Dune” and “Arrakis” are synonymous and refer to the third planet of Canopus.
On another note, I live in envy of you and all Southern Hemisphere citizens — I’ve never seen the Southern Cross or the Magellanic Clouds!
June 4th, 2011 at 3:33 am
Actually make that Mu Draconis instead, sorry. Click on my name for a link to more info. via Kaler’s Stars website.
@ 42. ABR : “You may want to pull out your copy of Dune. The names “Dune” and “Arrakis” are synonymous and refer to the third planet of Canopus.”
I’m always happy to re-read that book &, yeah, that sounds like a good excuse to do so & check. Very belated but sincere thanks.
If so, however, that is somewhat of a pity though because Canopus is a most unsuitable candidate star for habitable planets – a short-lived white giant that would fry its worlds then go supernova before life can arise, perhaps before planets could even properly form. Arrakis (Mu Draconis), OTOH, is a more likely Real Life possibility, an F7 V main-sequence binary with a possible distant red dwarf member as well. Hotter and more luminous than our Sun but still relatively long-lived enough and the binary is distant enough for exoplanets to orbit stablely around either star too.
NB. I used to post here as ‘Stevo’ years ago before I finally settled on my current moniker.