Mercury Flyby 1 |
Mercury Flyby 1 |
Dec 5 2007, 06:47 AM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 258 Joined: 22-December 06 Member No.: 1503 |
40 days and counting. The long wait is almost over!
I wonder whether we will get enough data to test new simulation theories like this one. http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19...solar-wind.html What do you expect from this first flyby? |
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Jan 17 2008, 05:42 PM
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#2
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Looks like theres a collapsed area in the middle of the infilled crater in the center of the above image: I don't know aout that. The linear features in that crater are most likely either lava flow fronts or tectonic ridges. If lava flow fronts, it's just an area where the lava didn't go. If tectonic ridges (which is my favored explanation, considering how many of them appear to have disregard for changing topography, across crater rims for instance), it's true that area was being onlapped by the adjacent materials being shoved up and over it, but the tectonism isn't of a style that's driven by collapse (vertical tension); it's of a style driven by lateral compressional forces. Search on wrinkle ridges. They're common across the terrestrial planets, all over the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Mercury and are even to be found in a few places on Earth (such as the Yakima folds). --Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Jan 17 2008, 08:02 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
I don't know about that. The linear features in that crater are most likely either lava flow fronts or tectonic ridges. If lava flow fronts, it's just an area where the lava didn't go. Possibly. The key is the relative lack of craters in the "interior" part of the putative collapse zone and the sharp contrast between the cute crater cluster and no craters. Something either obscured part of the crater clusters or messed it up. From the shading it appears that the center part of the zone is in a relative depression. So one possibility is that there were two (lava or debris) flow fronts to initially form the relative depression, then a third flow came down between them (and was overall lower) to infill the depression, which then partially covered up the cute crater cluster at the terminus. There is a dark line in the middle of the section, possibly indicating that the southern (in the image) part of this area is lower than the area near the terminus. Hard to explain how a debris flow would go uphill. Or the whole section dropped and formed a graben, and any craters of the cute crater cluster that were on the dropped side of the graben got jumbled up and smoothed over during the reshuffling. Maybe this is one terminus of a rille? -Mike -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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Jan 17 2008, 08:20 PM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
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Jan 17 2008, 09:36 PM
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#5
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
And thus, it would not be the case that something interrupted the cluster, but that it never extended into the smoother area. Ahhh, very interesting! So perhaps several of the crater clusters were formed by just having unobscured ballistic vectors from different impacts. A low cliff over there, another low cliff over there, and voila, an apparent concentration of craters from two seperate impacts. I guess conversely, there might be a few relatively (secondary) crater-free areas where secondary impacts never hit just because of the lucky placement of objects that blocked flung debris. Thanks! -Mike -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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