NASA decodes a mystery on Mars

The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) has just released a study that helps explain the existence of long and mysterious grooves on the slopes of giant sand dunes on Mars.

Researchers have been observing the mysterious grooves through countless images taken by Mars MRO satellite detectors and other NASA devices over the past 10 years.

Serina Diniega, a scientist at NASA's Jet Laboratory in California and the head of research, said: "I always dreamed of going to Mars. Now I have a desire to ski on one. Sand dunes on Red Planet ".

A photograph of the MRO satellite shows long and mysterious grooves on the slope of a giant sand dune on Mars.(Photo: EPA)

According to the team, strange grooves like linear notches, run down at the foot of the dunes, stretching for 2km while only a few meters wide, with raised edges on the sides.

Diniega and colleagues believe that these trenches are formed when the Martian surface warms in the spring, when a layer of carbon dioxide (often called dry ice) evaporates. This phenomenon causes the dry ice blocks to break and slide down the slopes on a pad of carbon dioxide vapor, forming linear grooves visible on the sand.

The team went to the decision after analyzing the images before and after forming the grooves in the sand in different seasons. To reinforce their hypothesis, they conducted experiments on Earth by pushing dry ice skates to the feet of sand hills in Utah and California, reconstructing 100% of the features that appear on Mars, despite the difference. differences in pressure and temperature between the two planets.

The team found that the final evidence of ice blocks is the formation of many holes in the dunes. They said this was the stop of dry ice blocks before completely evaporating into gas.