Mars

Dunes Along The Western Margin Of Hellas Planitia, Mars

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
June 15, 2026
Filed under , , , ,
Dunes Along The Western Margin Of Hellas Planitia, Mars
Dunes in Hellas ESP_075654_1385 NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona https://www.uahirise.org/ESP_075654_1385

This beautiful dune field is located along the western margin of Hellas Planitia, the floor of a giant depression in the Southern Hemisphere of Mars.

Scientists on the HiRISE team take multiple pictures of the same dune fields on the Red Planet to see if they can detect subtle changes that would indicate if the dunes are moving.

Some Martian dune fields do shift and move under the present day environmental conditions, but at a rate that is typically much slower than dunes move on Earth.

Written by: Sharon Wilson (15 December 2022)

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻