This is a list of

dune field A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

s not on Earth which have been given official names by the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

. Dune fields are named according to the IAU's rules of

planetary nomenclature Planetary nomenclature, like terrestrial nomenclature, is a system of uniquely identifying features on the surface of a planet or natural satellite so that the features can be easily located, described, and discussed. Since the invention of the ...

. The relevant descriptor term is undae. As of now, the only two

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

planets, besides Earth, with named dune fields are

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

and

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

. Dune fields have also been discovered on

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

's moon

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...

and comet

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (abbreviated as 67P or 67P/C–G) is a Jupiter-family comet. It is originally from the Kuiper belt and has an orbital period of 6.45 years as of 2012, a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours, and a maximum velo ...

Venus

There are three officially named dune fields on Venus. They are named after desert goddesses, as per the IAU's rules. They are listed below. * Al-Uzza Undae 67.7N, 90.5E – named after Uzza, an Arabian desert goddess * Menat Undae 24.8S, 339.4E * Ningal Undae 9.0N, 60.7E – named after Ningal, the wife of the Sumerian desert god

Sin In religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law or a law of the deities. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered ...

Mars

There are six officially named dune fields on Mars, which are named after nearby

classical albedo features The classical albedo features of Mars are the light and dark features that can be seen on the planet Mars through an Earth-based telescope. Before the age of space probes, several astronomers created maps of Mars on which they gave names to the fe ...

in accordance with the IAU's rules. Five of them lie between 75°N to 85°N, between

Planum Boreum Planum Boreum (Latin: "the northern plain") is the northern polar plain on Mars. It extends northward from roughly 80°N and is centered at . Surrounding the high polar plain is a flat and featureless lowland plain called Vastitas Borealis which ...

and

Vastitas Borealis is the largest lowland region of Mars. It is in the northerly latitudes of the planet and encircles the northern polar region. Vastitas Borealis is often simply referred to as the northern plains, northern lowlands or the North polar erg of ...

. These dune fields span over 200 degrees of longitude. The sixth, Ogygis Undae, lies on the southern hemisphere of Mars. They are listed below. *

Abalos Undae Abalos Undae (Latin for "Abalos Waves") is a dune field on Mars in the periphery of Planum Boreum, the Martian North pole. It is one of the officially named northern circumpolar dune fields, along with Olympia, Hyperboreae, and Siton Undae, ...

Aspledon Undae Aspledon Undae is one of the named northern circumpolar dune fields in the vicinity of Planum Boreum, the Martian North pole. It is named after one of the classical albedo features on Mars. Its name was officially approved by the International A ...

Hyperboreae Undae Hyperboreae Undae (Latin: "Far Northern Waves/Dunes") is one of the largest and densest dune fields of Planum Boreum, the Mars, Martian North Pole. It is named after one of the classical albedo features on Mars. Its name was officially approved b ...

Ogygis Undae Ogygis Undae is the only named southern hemisphere dune field on Mars. It is named after one of the classical albedo features on Mars, ''Ogygis Regio''. Its name, which refers to Ogyges, a primeval mythological ruler in ancient Greece, was offici ...

Olympia Undae Olympia Undae is a vast dune field in the north polar region of the planet Mars. It consists of a broad "sand sea" or erg that partly rings the north polar plateau ( Planum Boreum) from about 120° to 240°E longitude and 78° to 83°N latitude. ...

Siton Undae Siton Undae is one of the largest and densest dune fields in the vicinity of Planum Boreum, the Martian northern polar ice-cap. It is named after one of the classical albedo features on Mars. Its name was officially approved by IAU on 20 March 20 ...

Unofficial field names

PIA20281-MarsCuriosityRover-NamibSandDune-DownwindSide-20151217

* Bagnold dune field, Gale crater. This dune field was explored by ''Curiosity'' between initially between mission Sols ~1174–1248, where the rover investigated High dune, and Namib dune. Three orders of bedform were identified: wind ripple, large ripple (or wind drag ripple) and dune. Sand grains in this section of the dune field had a modal grain size of 120 μm * Namib dune, Gale crater. This is a prominent feature that looks like the giant dunes of Africa’s Namib Desert. * As part of the

Mars Exploration Rover NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, ''Spirit (rover), Spirit'' and ''Opportunity (rover), Opportunity'', exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rove ...

mission, a small dune field unofficially named El Dorado on the south side of

Husband Hill Husband Hill is one of the Columbia Hills in Gusev crater, Mars, which are close to the landing site of NASA's ''Spirit'' rover. It was named in honor of Rick Husband, the commander of the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' when it disintegrated upon ...

Gusev crater Gusev is a crater on the planet Mars and is located at and is in the Aeolis quadrangle. The crater is about 166 kilometers in diameter and formed approximately three to four billion years ago. It was named after Russian astronomer Matvey Guse ...

was investigated by the ''Spirit'' rover from sols 706 to 710. Analysis of El Dorado showed that it consists of black wind-blown sand which is "well-sorted, well-rounded and

olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron Silicate minerals, silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of Nesosilicates, nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle, it is a com ...

rich.

* The

Hagal dune field Hagal is the informal name of a dune field on Mars located below the Planum Boreum, north pole of Mars. Its name derives from the sand dunes in Frank Herbert's novel ''Dune (novel), Dune'' and the fictional planet Hagal (Dune), Hagal. It is locat ...

is named after

Frank Herbert Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920February 11, 1986) was an American science-fiction author, best known for his 1965 novel Dune (novel), ''Dune'' and its five sequels. He also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, ...

's novel ''

Dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

'' and the fictional planet Hagal. The field is also known as the "Martian Morse Code" due to the similarity of the Dune shapes to

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

dots and dashes. * Nili Patera dune field

Titan

There are five officially named dune fields on Titan, which are named after Greek gods, goddesses or personifications of wind. They are listed below: * Aura Undae * Boreas Undae *

Eurus Undae In Greek mythology and religion, Eurus () is the god and personification of the east wind, although sometimes he is also said to be southeast specifically. He is one of the four principal wind gods, the Anemoi, alongside Boreas (north wind), Ze ...

* Notus Undae * Zephyrus Undae Literature also uses names of dark albedo features when referring to Titan's dune fields: * Aztlan * Belet * Fensal * Senkyo *

Shangri-La Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains, Uses the spelling 'Kuen-Lun'. described in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon'' by the British author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently ...

Pluto

Analysis of high resolution photos from

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...

taken on 14 July 2015 of Pluto's Sputnik Planum region in 2018 has confirmed the presence of transverse dunes (perpendicular to the wind streaks) within the cellular nitrogen plains, spaced about 0.4 to 1 km apart, that are thought to be composed of 200-300 μm diameter particles of methane ice believed to be derived from the nearby

Al-Idrisi Montes This is a list of named geological features on Pluto, identified by scientists working with data from the ''New Horizons'' spacecraft. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially approved the first 14 names on 8 August 2017 (announced 7 ...

. These features are yet to be formally named.

References

A large portion of this article was sourced from th
Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature
the official IAU database of planetary names. * {{Venus Surface features of Mars Surface features of Venus Dune fields