NASA saw several Morse-like dunes among the sands of Mars and deciphered one of them. This is reported by Gizmodo with a link to the Hi-RISE camera website.
Hi-RISE captures the surface of Mars in visible light and near infrared range from the automatic interplanetary station Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been in orbit of the planet since 2006. Dots and dashes in the topography of Mars were noticed before, but only on the Hagal Dune (located just south of the North Pole) did these patterns appear especially clearly.
The reason is that an almost perfectly circular lowland (probably a crater covered with sand) concentrated the winds blowing around in a certain way. Dashes are formed by bi-directional air currents (blowing perpendicular to the dune itself). Dots (barchanoid dunes) appear when something interrupts this process of drawing lines - what exactly, scientists do not yet know.
Planetologist Veronica Bray, working with the Hi-RISE camera, decoded the caption from the picture. She got the following text: "NEE NED ZB 6TNN DEIBEDH SIEFI EBEEE SSIEI ESEE SEEE !!".
There are currently five stations in Mars orbit. Three of them are American: Mars Odyssey (since 2001), MRO (since 2006) and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, since 2014). American rovers Opportunity (since 2004) and Curiosity (since 2012) operate on the surface of the Red Planet. The Opportunity rover is the record holder for the duration of operation, and the Curiosity device is the heaviest rover (its weight is 900 kilograms). The Russian-European station ExoMars-2019, which includes the TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) orbital probe and the Schiaparelli demonstration landing module, is heading to Mars. The station should reach the Red Planet in mid-October 2016.
