The Giant Black Sand Dunes of Mars and Curiosity

[Ichingcarpenter]

https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/status/667857832927084544/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw


The Mars rover Curiosity has moved in for a closer look at giant sand dunes on the Red Planet — sending back fresh images of their dark, rippled surface along with a few partial selfies.

Pictures of the dunes, taken by the rover's black-and-white navigational cameras, were posted online by NASA late Thursday. They show a mix of sand, rocky terrain and large, grey hills in the distance; often with one of Curiosity's wheels or other components in the frame.

"These dunes have a different texture from dunes on Earth," said Nathan Bridges of Johns Hopkins University — who co-heads Curiosity's "dune campaign" "The ripples on them are much larger than ripples on top of dunes on Earth, and we don't know why." — in a statement.

The so-called Bagnold Dunes are on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, which Curiosity reached last year.

One of the dunes is as large as a two-storey building and as broad as a football field

, according to NASA. Observations from orbit indicate the dunes are moving about one metre per year.





http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?s=#/?slide=1174


http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/technology/curiosity-mars-rover-dunes-1.3340115

[longship]

1. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, covered this, too.

Black Friday on Mars

Today is the day after American Thanksgiving, considered to be the first shopping day of the Christmas season. Due to the onslaught of eager shoppers to stores, it’s been nicknamed Black Friday.

It’s not restricted to the US, though. The Curiosity rover is having its own Black Friday on Mars — in this case, a bit more literally: It’s reached the edge of the Bagnold Dunes, a windswept region in the vast Gale Crater with huge, towering dunes.

more at link

Highly worth a click through.

R&K

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I'm listening to the audio SF book 'Red Mars' on youtube

Great Book so far...........when I found this mars news.


. As far as 'The Man in the High Castle'
the book had the NAZIs already settling on Mars and the solar system in the 60s..... the TV show didn't touch that part of it.Listened to audio book on youtube also on that.

Anyway I can't wait until we get some humans on mars to really check things out.

[longship]

3. Will Mark Watney volunteer? ;-) nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. J. Michael Straczynski Will Adapt Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars for Spike TV

It’s been a long road bringing Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars) to the small screen. First it was James Cameron who held the rights, with the intention of creating a five-hour miniseries; later, Gale Ann Hurd had a similar idea, intended for Syfy. The next network to set its sights on the trilogy was AMC, back in 2008 and fresh off the start of Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

Finally, Spike TV took over the rights—and according to Deadline, they’ve signed on Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski to adapt Red Mars.


Red Mars tracks the eary colonization and terraforming of Mars, as told through the perspectives of the First Hundred who are chosen to leave behind an Earth suffering from overpopulation, ecological disasters, and the emergence of transnational corporations threatening to overthrow the world’s governments. On Mars, the First Hundred debate the ethics of terraforming, namely how much power humans should have over an entirely new planet.

“The heart of this series tackles the question of what it means to be human—and can we sustain our humanity under incredible duress,” said Sharon Levy, Spike TV’s Executive VP of Original Series. Robinson will serve as consultant on the series, which is being produced by Game of Thrones co-executive producer Vince Gerardis.

It will be interesting to see how Straczynski—who has often impacted SFF for the better—takes on Robinson’s Hugo and Nebula-winning trilogy.


http://www.tor.com/2015/01/22/j-michael-straczynski-red-mars-spike-tv/


I enjoyed 'The Martian' and his damn potatoes.

[longship]

5. I've heard about KSR "Red Mars" project.

What I heard sounds good.

Unfortunately, no cable TV here; no broadband Inet either. Will have to wait for DVD.

I should probably snag the books.

Thanks for the info.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. What's a DVD?

is that some tech thing from the late 90s?

Boy .... no broadband that must be tough.
I'd go nuts since I have no TV or radio anymore.

Many of the new laptops don't even have a DVD player anymore.
My daughter just bought a new Macbook and it didn't have one as I was trying to connect her to her router at her home and I said
WTF!!! I had to go home and get my 2007 laptop to make it happen.

[longship]

7. My only access to Inet is an iPhone and an iPad.

Both very limited by download caps.

My laptop died three weeks ago, which was my DVD player, so I bought a $30 one. And it died last week. Pshaw!

And I am a NetFlicks DVD subscriber. It's either DVD or no movies for me.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Larger ripples mostly from lower gravity, I would think.

Everything is going to be different about aeolian processes on Mars, just as waves in liquid oceans will be different on Titan. The atmosphere is much thinner and gravity is lower. Even the sand grains are probably different sizes from Earth sand. It's easier to raise sand grains up in the air because of the lower gravity but harder to keep them up because of the thin air. Those huge dust storms probably involve finer dust than on Earth because our atmosphere is thick and syrupy in comparison to Mars'. And of course the atmosphere on Venus is as dense as water, so yeah, dunes will look different there too.

[Baclava]

9. Dunes, dunes and more dunes

CURIOSITY REACHES MASSIVE FIELD OF SPECTACULARLY RIPPLED ACTIVE MARTIAN SAND DUNES





http://www.universetoday.com/123874/curiosity-reaches-massive-field-of-spectacularly-rippled-active-martian-sand-dunes/