Opportunity Encounters Rolling Ripples

MARSDAILY

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (SPX) May 02, 2006
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity continues to cut southward across a plain marked by large sand ripples and a pavement of outcrop rock.

In this image, taken April 19, on sol 795, the ripple in the center shows a distinct pattern of banding, which the science team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory hopes to investigate more closely during Opportunity's trek through this terrain on its way to Victoria Crater.

The banding and other features have inspired a hypothesis that ripples along the Meridiani Planum - the area Opportunity has been exploring since January 2004 - are old features that are currently being eroded and not transported by the Martian winds.

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