dunes

Scientists Discover Frozen Methane Dunes on Pluto

Something weird is at work on the cold, dark plains of Pluto, where hundreds of regularly spaced ridges look a bit like an alien thumbprint pressed into extraterrestrial ice. Today, though, researchers report in the journal Science that the strange landscape is actually a dune field crafted from methane "sand."

Saturn’s Titan Was Likely Sculpted by Rogue Winds Gusting on the Moon

While researchers have long known of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and its sandy surface, new research presented this week in two separate studies published in the journal Nature reveals that the 300 foot sand dunes on the moon’s surface may have originated from very different circumstances than those on Earth. Titan, which is much like the Earth, is one of the most intriguing moons our solar system has come to offer. But while it is the only other celestial body that has standing reservoirs of liquid on its surface and fields of dunes like those of the Sahara desert, astronomers are now finding that the events leading to Titan’s surface are far unlike what happened here on Earth.

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