Comments on: LRO sees a Moonslide

By: Crudely Wrott

Crudely Wrott — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:03:55 +0000

Oohh! Tom K! Skiing on the Moon.

There was a wonderful short story from the mid 50s (I think , author uncertain) that featured just such a thing. If memory serves, one attaches perforated soles to ones moon boots which exhaust jets of compressed gas carried in back packs. Upon arrival at the summit one would only need to face downhill, activate a valve and take a couple of forward steps. The rest would be gravy (ty).

By: Crudely Wrott

Crudely Wrott — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:57:39 +0000

Stuff moves. Places and paces change but stuff still moves.

By: Tom K.

Tom K. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:13:32 +0000

Looks like some pretty cool ski slopes. Wonder what the lift tickets cost. All that fresh\really old powder.

By: Old Geezer

Old Geezer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:28:33 +0000

Let me quibble for the sake of discussion. I can’t see all of the detail, because the image doesn’t show the origin of this slide, but I don’t think this is really a landslide as much as it is the evidence of a lot of surface rock falling down a slope. Classically, a landslide would involve a large amount of dirt moving as a single mass. Think of any hillside in Los Angeles after a fire and subsequent rain. There is the typical egg-shaped zone of newly exposed dirt above and a big pile of dirt below. What I see here is the pattern of rocks or boulders rolling down the surface of the slope without the underlying mass being disturbed. If you’ve seen films of a snow avalanche, you’ve seen this first movement of snow crumbs along the surface followed by the sudden drop of a mass of snow in the actual avalanche. The moon crumbs fell, but the land beneath did not slide.

Am I missing something or just being too picky? Any geologists out there?

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:04:40 +0000

The really cool thing about this landslide is that since there’s no atmosphere or water to wear it away, and that very little has happened on the moon in millions of years, the question is which is older: this landslide, or the dinosaurs?

By: Ken B

Ken B — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:49:34 +0000

Hmm… I’m trying to post another comment, but it won’t appear. No “awaiting moderation” notice, either. ???

[edit] Okay, now they’ve appeared with “awaiting moderation”. Strange for the delay. Hopefully, BA can just not approve one of them, since I posted it twice.

By: Ken B

Ken B — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:48:35 +0000

Speaking of the Apollo XVII site:

http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M109032389LE

Are those more rocks tumbling down slopes that I see? About 1/3rd of the way down from the top, where the bright image turns to dark, I see some near-vertical lines, ending in what look like boulders towards the bottom (in the image). For example:

http://www.hvcomputer.com/temp/M109032389LE-zoom.png

And, where in the full images is the Apollo XVII landing site?