By Robert Emslie
Sand dunes do not make for the easiest surface upon which to traverse, although with enough power, conviction, and knobby tires they can make for one of the most dramatic.
Image source: Imgur
Latest
Cars, Trucks, Bikes, Project Cars, DIY, Travel, Adventure, Podcast, Videos
Jeff Glucker
All the graphic designers at work think this is shopped. I sincerely hope it isn't… 🙁
Nah, I would bet not. I haven't done any serious poking at the image looking for photoshop artifacts, but it passes the smell test for alright physics: the spiral is going in the right direction.
Surely somewhere is non-shopped image then, no? My Google-fu fails me. I think it's real.
I'm a designer and I don't think it's shopped. When something gets thrown off a spinning object, it goes in a straight line. However, the spinning object is not stationary in this case. Each grain of sand gets thrown off in a straight line that originates in a slightly different place – giving the illusion of a spiral. Where there are spokes, there is no sand escaping the wheel. Pretty cool.
I think I've seen slo-mo video of it once, but I can't find it online.
Less spectacular examples of the same effect don't prove it wasn't shopped, but they are really cool.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Dakar_2006_Alphand.jpg/1280px-Dakar_2006_Alphand.jpg" width="600">
<img src="http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/dakar2011_01_14/d41_26588339.jpg" width="600">
IMGs from Wikipedia, Boston.com's Big Picture (they do a great annual Dakar gallery)