Ghost Dunes detected on Mars

Ghost Dunes detected on Mars could have Hidden Trace of Life

Science

Recently scientists invented newly croissant-shape impressions on Mars that are giving hints to the antecedents of the Red Planet. In the “Journal of Geophysical Research” a recent study revealed by the astrobiologist David Catling and geomorphologist Mackenzie Day that their invention about the 800 “ghost dunes”; which are imprints of the hardened casts of ancient sand dunes, formed when sediments or lava seeped and solidifies across the lower contour of the sand piles, have been spotted on two different locations on the Mars. Using satellite images researchers have traced fields of ghost dunes denting the surface on two different regions of the Red Planet.

As winds gradually disperse the upper part of sand, just where the dune once stood in the negative space got preserved as a pit over the Martian surface. Whilst mammoth sand dunes got documented in various images of the Mars, and those new geologic features were first invented on Earth back in 2016 that later only got observed in Mars previously this year. After analyzing the shape, size and age of the sand dunes these ghost dunes could throw some light on the Red Planet. The research team also states that pockets at the edges of the pits might still have sand, which has been sheltered from the elements over millions of years. As per scientist this could lead to a significant place for searching the molecular trace of life on Mars, since sand dunes on the Blue Dot have been shown to embrace microbial life.

At the University of Washington, in Seattle, the planetary geomorphologist; Mackenzie told that any of those pits aren’t adequate to state that they are dunes, or are from ancient dune field, but when been gathered altogether that have various commonalities with the dunes on the Mars and also on Earth, which need to get employ on some fantastic type of explanation for explaining them as something else than dunes. And if things get lucky then the dunes might even tell something extra about the ancient landscape. By the trace of the dunes researchers even figured out the wind blowing direction.