While Bill Nye may see Mars as a barren wasteland, it can also be a beautiful and magical place. The frost-covered dunes above show this to be true.
Here is NASA's explanation of what we see in the image:
Sand dunes cover much of this terrain, which has large boulders lying on flat areas between the dunes. It is late winter in the southern hemisphere of Mars, and these dunes are just getting enough sunlight to start defrosting their seasonal cover of carbon dioxide. Spots form where pressurized carbon dioxide gas escapes to the surface.
NASA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HIRISE) aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image on March 27, 2016.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
