NASA's eyes in the Martian sky recently saw some strange-looking dashes and dots on the Red Planet's surface, which scientists said have an uncanny resemblance to Morse code.
The image was captured by the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
(HiRISE), which has been studying Mars since 2005.
But don't hold your breath if you believe it's Martians attempting to send us a message, like a castaway on a tropical island writing out "help." These massive "dashes" are really dunes produced by winds blowing in opposite directions. The "dots," known as barchanoid dunes, arise when a momentary blip in the bi-directional winds is a momentary blip in the bi-directional winds that build the linear dunes.
However, scientists still don't know exactly how these geological structures form. So HiRISE's study is quite interesting to geophysicists, giving them to be quite interesting to geophysicists, giving them some insights about wind direction and the processes that build these geological structures.
Veronica Bray, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, which developed the HiRISE camera, told Gizmodo that she interpreted the "message" for fun. According to Bray, it says: “NEE NED ZB 6TNN DEIBEDH SIEFI EBEEE SSIEI ESEE SEEE.”
I believe.
Reference(s):
HiRISE | Martian Morse Code