If you build your home in the heart of a dune plain , you’re gon na have a spoiled time . debate the edifice of Mos Espa ( the Tatooinian metropolis featured in The Phantom Menace ) , which are about to be bury by a hill of sand advancing steadily across the Tunisian desert .
The Star Wars set , scientists promise , will shortly be overcome by the sand dune . That ’s a bummer for Mos Espa ( the litoral reportedly made inter-group communication this year , and are now encroaching on Qui - Gon Alley ) , but great news for Ralph D. Lorenz , a world scientist at Johns Jopkins University .
For one thing , the set ’s buildings offer a make geographic reference dot – a helpful feature when measuring the migration of guts sand dune with satellite imagery . The band ’s ethnical relevance has also made the dunes soft to monitor from the ground . Its “ popularity as a destination for Star Wars partizan , ” write the researchers inthe latest issue of the journalGeomorphology , “ results in many photo being post on the net , provide a rich set of in - situ imagery for continued monitoring in the absence of consecrate study visits . ”
Lorenz and his team have therefore been able to supervise the movement and distribution of lead - blown , crescent - shaped dunes call “ barchans . ” Barchans , which form when sand swept up the windward side of a dune crest the point and cascade down down the lee side , have been observe throughout the solar system of rules , admit on the surface of Mars :
range of a function like these help geologists and planetary scientists interpret wind ’s role in shaping a planet ’s aerofoil over time , through what are calledaeolian cognitive operation . The dunes about to overtake Mos Espa , for example , have been clocked come along at a stride of around 15 meters per yr , and are think to transport some 50 three-dimensional metre of Baroness Dudevant per meter per twelvemonth . Understanding the wind ’s geological wallop , and recognizing how that impingement varies not just here on Earth , but other places in our solar system of rules , can instruct us much about a major planet ’s geological and climatological yesteryear , present , and future .
https://gizmodo.com/high-resolution-images-of-mars-reveal-a-stunning-wind-5879398
The researchers ’ findings are published in the latest way out ofGeomorphology .
GeologyMarsScienceStar war
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