NASA’s eyes in the Martian sky came
across some odd-looking dashes and dots on the surface of the Red Planet
recently, which they pointed out has an eerie similarity to Morse code. The image was taken on February 6, 2016, by
the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) onboard the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been exploring Mars since 2005.
But don't hold your breath if you're
thinking it’s Martians trying to send us Earthlings a message, like a castaway
spelling out "help" in giant rocks on a tropical island. These huge
“dashes” are actually dunes that have been formed by winds blowing in two
directions. The “dots”, called barchanoid dunes, are created when there is a
brief blip in the bi-directional winds that form the linear dunes.
However, we still aren’t totally sure
how these geological features are created. So this work from HiRISE is proving
to be of great interest to geophysicists, providing them with some insights
into wind direction and the processes that create these geological formations.
Veronica Bray, a planetary scientist
from the University of Arizona, the institution behind the HiRISE camera, told
Gizmodo that she deciphered the “message” anyway for a bit of fun. According to
Bray, it says: “NEE NED ZB 6TNN DEIBEDH SIEFI EBEEE SSIEI ESEE SEEE.”
I want to believe.
Source
No comments