Mars has tattoos?

Mars has tattoos?

This high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light-colored terrain on the Martian surface. (Image Credit: NASA, HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona))

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Story Created: Oct 26, 2009 at 11:09 AM PST

Story Updated: Oct 26, 2009 at 11:09 AM PST

By Scott Sistek

This might look like some fancy print for an expensive couch or maybe the aftermath after your basketball got away from you and rolled across a bed of hot coals (because, we all keep those handy near playgrounds), but this is actually a photo of Mars.

More specifically, a part of Mars that has been dogged by their version of dust devils.

Here is the photo explanation, :

"This high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light-colored terrain on the Martian surface. Newly formed trails like these had presented researchers with a tantalizing mystery but are now known to be the work of miniature wind vortices known to occur on the red planet, in other words Martian dust devils.

"Such spinning columns of rising air heated by the warm surface are also common in dry and desert areas on planet Earth. Typically lasting only a few minutes, dust devils become visible as they pick up loose red-colored dust leaving the darker and heavier sand beneath intact. Ironically, dust devils have been credited with unexpectedly cleaning the solar panels of the Mars rovers."

Find higher resolution version at nasa.gov, should you want to use this to create a fabric sample :)
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