This is not a painting or some weird close-up photo. This is the sort of thing that takes my breath away. Mars. High-resolution image taken by the HiRISE project on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of a dune field in the high northern latitudes from about 200 miles above the surface to be precise.

The little waves you see are the dunes themselves. Then, there are those dark tendrils. That they look like they’re rising up is an optical illusion. In fact, those are landslides. The light red color that you see covering most of the surface is in fact a very fine dust. Just under it is a much more coarse basaltic sand that has that darker color. The white that you see is actually DRY ICE! That’s right – the winter on Mars is so cold that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere freezes solid (that means it dips below 109.3°F or -78.5°C).

When it warms up, the dry ice sublimates, or turns back into a gas. When it does that, the sand that has built up around it becomes unstable and causes a landslide. Sometimes hard to remember that the surface of Mars is constantly changing, just like the surface of the Earth.

Want to learn more about sublimation? Check out our O Wow Moment Video Sublime Sublimation. Enjoy!