ESA posts stunning image of wind-sculpted Martian surface
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The image is of The Hooke Crater area located in Mars' southern highlands. The image was clicked from orbit by ESA and Russian space agency Roscosmos' ExoMars Trace Gas orbitter
Our idea of life and nature is so Earth-centric that it's hard for us to imagine that some of other planets have atmospheres too. Take Mars for example. It has a very thin atmosphere. But atmosphere nonetheless. Winds blow on Martian surface too. It's just that its intensity is way less than that on Earth.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a picture that shows effect of Martian wind on the surface of the planet. Just like the wind here on Earth, the Martian wind sculpts surface of the red planet.
The image is of The Hooke Crater area located in Mars' southern highlands. The image was clicked from orbit by ESA and Russian space agency Roscosmos' ExoMars Trace Gas orbitter.
ESA has shared the image on its Instagram handle. The ripples in the Martian soil and some hillocks can be seen in the picture.
"The devil's definitely in the detail‼️ Chaotic mounds, wind-sculpted ripples and dust devil tracks: this image shows a fascinating and otherworldly landscape near Hooke Crater in Mars’ southern highlands..." says ESA in the Instagram post.
"...This type of scenery is similar to ‘chaotic terrain’: a kind of broken, disrupted terrain seen across Mars where haphazard groups of variously sized and shaped rocks – irregular knobs, conical mounds, ridges, flat-topped hills known as mesas – clump together, often enclosed within depressions. There are around 30 regions of chaotic terrain defined on Mars..." it adds
Space fanatics have given thumbs up to the image. It has garnered more than 10 thousand likes