{"id":205663,"date":"2025-02-05T20:14:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/the-shape-of-mars-discovering-wind-patterns-through-dune-formation"},"modified":"2025-02-05T20:14:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:14:54","slug":"the-shape-of-mars-discovering-wind-patterns-through-dune-formation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/the-shape-of-mars-discovering-wind-patterns-through-dune-formation","title":{"rendered":"The Shape of Mars: Discovering Wind Patterns Through Dune Formation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-shape-of-mars-discovering-wind-patterns-through-dune-formation.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What can sand dunes on Earth and Mars teach us about the latter\u2019s wind behavior and atmosphere? This is what a recently awarded NASA grant hopes to address as a PhD student at Texas A&amp;M University will be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/news-releases\/1072495\">tasked with analyzing<\/a> what are known as \u201ccompound dunes\u201d, which are large sand dunes that possess smaller dunes compounding on the top, giving the appearance they are \u201cgrowing\u201d on the top of the larger dunes. While compound dunes have been studied extensively on Earth, this will be the first time they are examined on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n<p>Like sand dunes on Earth, Mars sand dunes are formed from wind processes (also called aeolian processes), which is the primary atmospheric behavior occurring on the Red Planet since its atmospheric pressure is far too low to have liquid water on its surface. Because of this, wind patterns drive sandstorms and dust storms, often encircling the entire planet and preventing sunlight from reaching the surface.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe shape and pattern of these aeolian bedforms\u2014geologic features shaped by wind\u2014can tell us so much about the environment,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/artsci.tamu.edu\/news\/2025\/02\/tamu-geology-and-geophysics-phd-student-awarded-nasa-grant-to-study-martian-dunes.html\">said Lauren Berger<\/a>, who is the recipient of the NASA grant. \u201cBy comparing compound dunes on Mars to those on Earth, we can uncover similarities and differences that could help us better understand the Martian surface and atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can sand dunes on Earth and Mars teach us about the latter\u2019s wind behavior and atmosphere? This is what a recently awarded NASA grant hopes to address as a PhD student at Texas A&amp;M University will be tasked with analyzing what are known as \u201ccompound dunes\u201d, which are large sand dunes that possess smaller [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":706,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}