Space.com
By Robert Lea
March 9, 2023
Planetary scientists have captured an image of near-perfectly circular sand dunes on the surface of Mars. While sand dunes across the Red Planet come in a wealth of shapes and sizes, such well-defined circles are unusual.
The slight asymmetry in the sand dunes shows their steep sides are orientated towards the south. The University of Arizona, which operates the High-Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRise) camera used to take the image, pointed out in a statement(opens in new tab) that this indicates sands are blown southwards, though the Martian winds may be variable.