(NASA)

NASA has spotted a field of strange, dark dunes on Mars that look eerily like the dots and dashes that comprise Morse code.

The field has been captured before, but thenew images,taken Feb. 6, 2016, and recently released show the dunes in clearer detail than usual, allowing scientists to translate the message for the first time.

And, no, it's not a message from aliens, but an indication of wind patterns on the red planet. Like Earth, dune patterns are sculpted by the wind.

According to a, the images were captured using theHigh Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Influenced by local topography, the shape and orientation of dunes generally indicatewind direction; however, because of the complexity of these dune forms, wind direction is difficult to determine, NASA says.

The new images have shed some light on the complexity of windpatterns on Mars.

A circular depression, which was probably formed from an old and infilled impact crater, has limited the amount of sand available for dune formation and influenced local winds. The result is the distinct pattern of dots and dashes that the images have captured.

The “dashes” turn out to be linear dunes formed by bi-directional winds, which are not traveling parallel to the dune.

"Instead, the combined effect of winds from two directions at right angles to the dunes, funnels material into a linear shape," reads the press release. "The smaller “dots” (called “barchanoid dunes”) occur where there is some interruption to the process forming those linear dunes. This process is not well understood at present and is one motivation for HiRISE to image this area."

For a bit of fun,Veronica Bray, the HiRISE targeting specialist who analyzed the image, decided to of Mars, according to Gizmodo.

Here's what she came up with:

NEE NED ZB 6TNN DEIBEDH SIEFI EBEEE SSIEI ESEE SEEE !!

Apart from a little geophysicist fun, the images are important because the sands of Mars might one day help us better understand life on the surface of our neighboring planet.