Corduroy Dunes

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows the permanent polar cap of Mars, encircled by sand dunes and looking like pulled threads.
May 29, 2018
CreditNASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
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The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 37.1 centimeters (14.6 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning); objects on the order of 95 centimeters (37.4 inches) across are resolved.] North is up.

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows the permanent polar cap of Mars, encircled by sand dunes and looking like pulled threads. These dunes march across a fabric of patterned ground.

At this time of the Martian year, the dunes are free of the seasonal dry ice that forms a temporary cover every winter.

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