Comments on: Impact weaved Mercury’s spider webs

By: Harold

Harold — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:53:14 +0000

rob, I think it’s more like a giant spermatazoon impaled itself on a giant Sea Urchin. Space Urchin. Something.

An illustration of the terrible truth of Panspermia. I bet Phil didn’t include getting smacked with giant space wigglies in “Death from the Skies!”

By: Chris A.

Chris A. — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:30:07 +0000

Well, I have my own pet hypothesis about this feature. Note the largest channel which extends toward the south (bottom) of the image: It’s different than the others (wider, cross-cuts the others, and tapers the farther from the crater it gets). Also, note how steep the NNW wall of the crater appears.

I speculate that this is a feature akin to Crater Lake, Oregon, USA, where a large volcanic caldera collapsed upon itself (it even has its own “Wizard Island!”). At some later time the lava-filled caldera breached the southern crater wall, forming the tapering outflow channel which overlaid the cracks (which had formed previously due to the uplift of the rising magma plume which spawned the volcano in the first place).

I won’t be proven right/wrong until MESSENGER’s in orbit and can start mapping detailed topography of this region. But I’m waiting on pins and needles (for 2.5 more years).

But what do I know? I’m not a planetary geologist.

By: rob

rob — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:43:37 +0000

looks like a giant spermatozoon hit the planet then exploded.

By: BMcP

BMcP — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:00:10 +0000

I would say that Mercury is significantly less then half the diameter of the Earth, somewhere around 38% of the Earth’s actually.

By: The Perky Skeptic

The Perky Skeptic — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:45:00 +0000

This is so exciting!!! Being able to observe these phenomena up close and make better hypotheses about the events that shaped our universe is why astronomy’s SO FREAKIN’ COOL!!! Yay, probes!!!

By: JohnW

JohnW — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:25:39 +0000

Phil, I thought this was a political blog? You should stick to politics. If I wanted astronomy, I’d go to an astronomy blog. I’m removing you from my blogroll.

Heehee;)

By: (HEARTS)

(HEARTS) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:34:02 +0000

Fahrenheit it would be this time, that’s my guess .. ~400 degrees C or 700 degrees K.