Nasa has released incredible pictures of a mysterious blue sand dune found inside a crater on the Red Planet. Photo / Nasa
Nasa has released incredible pictures of a mysterious blue sand dune found inside a crater on the Red Planet. Photo / Nasa
Mars is universally known as the Red Planet, but a stunning photograph released by US space agency NASA has revealed the complexities of its colour palette.
The striking image was captured by Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's (MRO) camera, which is managed by the University of Arizona, on January 24 andreleased this week while the planet remains in the grip of a massive sand storm.
The storm has silenced Nasa's solar-powered Opportunity rover but its better-known Curiosity rover has not been affected, continuing to collect data and even posing for a dusty selfie.
The dune was spotted on Mars' Lyot Crater region and researchers suspect it might be made of "finer material" than neighbouring dunes, according to a statement from the space agency.
Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's camera zoomed in on the floor of the planet's Lyot Crater to capture this bright blue sand dune. Photo / Nasa
The MRO image zooms in on the floor of the crater, where a cluster of regular sand dunes is overlaid by one huge blue sand dune, sprawling over the landscape.
The smaller dunes are classic barchan dunes — the technical term for a crescent-shaped dune formed by gusts of wind.
The big blue one, however, "appearing like turquoise blue in enhanced colour, is made of finer material and/or has a different composition than the surrounding," Nasa said.
MRO also snapped this incredible image of the moving sand ripples of Lobo Vallis, a region on Mars named after a river on the Ivory Coast, in April. Photo / Nasa
Planetary Geologist Alfred McEwen, one of the scientists who operates the University of Arizona's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera that took the photograph, explained how it came to be.
