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Curiosity Rover Catches Stunning Martian Dawn (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/curiosityrover@lemmy.world
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The captivating shapes of wind-carved crags called yardangs are revealed in this zoomed-in crop of a broader panorama captured by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on Aug. 11, 2026. Scientists are eager to learn more about how the yardang layer formed. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The full press release is on this link

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-catches-stunning-martian-dawn/

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[–] 5 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Okay, at the risk of sounding dumb: what's a yardang?

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    No such thing as a dumb question on this forum.

    Basically it's a soft bedrock that can be easily eroded by wind blown sands and chips of the same rock. The wind carves out deep channels and troughs that usually align with the prevalent wind direction. We have them here on Earth and also on Mars.

    Here's a link to the best description I've seen and it also contains some great photographic examples

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-yardang-180951461/

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/MPiFjxFr4vMCl3ZipVzQ2AaPJCU=/fit-in/1072x0/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/cms_page_media/2014/5/14/42-20703499.jpg

    Holy crap this is otherworldly, wow.

    Super cool! Thanks for the info. Great posts here as always, I love reading your writeups

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 month ago

    Holy crap this is otherworldly, wow. We live on a very geologically diverse planet, but share many of those geologies with the other rocky planets like Mars :) The car in that shot really provides scale for those Yardangs in the Gobi desert :)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Once upon a time, NASA and JPL would themselves take up the task of adding scale to rover images, by adding in a correctly scaled model of the vehicle to actual photographs:

    Now Opportunity compares to a golf cart in size, whereas Curiosity and Perseverance are nearer a car or van. The above image of Opportunity at Victoria Crater, a small break in the immense flatness of Meridiani Planum, would seem modest compared to a scaled model of Curiosity ascending Mt. Sharp. I wish I had the skills and time to do that kind of work...

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