In the full observation, we can see several dunes within a crater and a gorgeous dune that arcs to the center of the image.

One question that scientists want to know: do dunes move? That may seem obvious to us as we see dunes ripple with wind here on Earth, but we can’t always assume the same process works on Mars. Indeed, this observation was taken to study possible dune changes since one taken two Mars years ago. ( PSP_002468_1340 ).

If you take a closer look with the subimage, you can see a gully near the rim of the dune. How do gullies form on Mars? Is by wind or some other process?

Written by: HiRISE Science Team   (23 March 2011)

This is a stereo pair with ESP_020269_1340 .

More info and image formats at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_019992_1340

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona