The windswept craters of Mars’ Terra Cimmeria – Astronomy Magazine
Signs of wind activity are evident within Terra Cimmeria.
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
Lori Fenton, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute who studies how winds shape planetary surfaces, notes that the images show wind streaks and dust devil tracks aligned in the same direction. “That suggests, but doesn’t prove, that they may have been formed at the same time, or at least that the strong, sand-moving winds seem to blow mainly from the northwest,” she told Astronomy.
Fenton adds that darkness on the northwest-facing sides of the mesas and on the northwest-facing interior wall of the large crater indicates dark sand carried by wind. This, combined with the lack of a dune field on the crater floor, suggests the winds are strong, continuous, or both, she says.
