Terrain sculpted grain by grain by the Martian wind.
Aeolis is a region of wind-shaped landscapes lying between Gale crater and Elysium, filled with massive dune fields and streamlined ridges. It lends its name to Aeolis Mons — better known as Mount Sharp, the peak NASA's Curiosity rover is climbing inside Gale.
Claim your plot here →Aeolis — named for the Greek keeper of the winds — is exactly that: a stretch of Mars where the atmosphere is the master sculptor. Endless dune fields and knife-edge yardangs record the relentless work of wind carving soft rock over eons, some of the most dramatic aeolian scenery on the planet.
The region also holds Aeolis Mons, the 5 km central mound of Gale crater that mission scientists renamed Mount Sharp. Its layered slopes are being read like a book by Curiosity, while nearby Aeolis Dorsa preserves inverted riverbeds — ancient channels now standing up as ridges after the surrounding ground eroded away.
Aeolis' wind-cut ridges are cousins of the vast Medusae Fossae Formation, one of the most heavily wind-eroded deposits on Mars.