8/28/2003: Mars "fingerprint"

The Astro pic of the Day for August 15th. With all the Mars news this week, this was probably the most compelling of all the images that were offered by various folks. Partly because it's fairly recent, from June of this year.

The crater, on the Mars surface, is 2.3 km (1.4 mi.) wide. It's visually confusing, but the layers of sediment that make up the "swirls" are highest in the MIDDLE of the crater.

The work of figuring out how those layers came to be is left as an exercise for the reader.

Mmmm... crop circles?

Bullshit eruption.

Big Mars zit ready to explode

Hmmm...so it's an innie and an outie?
Cool, UT. You get the best.

High in middle.

I think it's this: At that kind of velocity, solids act like liquids. And you know how when you drop water into more water, there is a raised thing in the middle? Basically in the center the forces are all in and it goes up because it's moving in and on the outside things are moving out (and still a little down) and everything gets pushed out with them. And that's enough physics for me today.

This is from the Huron King underground nuclear test in 1980. I can't make out anything about ridges, but when I saw that they were the highest in the center of crater, that got me thinking explosion, something pushing up starting at the center and decreasing as it moves outward, and well...

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Have you ever seen a picture of a raindrop hitting a pool of water? For a split second as the drop hits there is a brief upward splash from the surface of the water just as a circular ripple starts to form Perhaps the suface was once very wet or muddy and it rained hard, I mean really hard!

Have to go now, nurse says I need to take my medicine.

How about elastic rebound? The theory: Whatever hit forced the surface layers of rock down, plasticizing them as well. They essentially BOUNCED back up, cooling the whole time, and solidified too much to drop back to level or below.

But Honey, I did put the seat up. Haven't you ever heard of elastic rebound?

Quote:

Originally posted by LUVBUGZ Big Mars zit ready to explode

Quote:

Originally posted by plthijinx hey bugz, isn't that NBN's zit?

If you zoom the Hubble cameras in real close on the wall of the crater you can see amazing detail!

Hmmmm....NBN......plthijinx......chrisinhouston.....must be something in the water.

Quote:

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce Hmmmm....NBN......plthijinx......chrisinhouston.....must be something in the water.