Comments on: LRO sees a Moonslide

By: Williams Gieselman

Williams Gieselman — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:34:13 +0000

Wow, awesome blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy. The entire glance of your website is wonderful, let alone the content!

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?

By: Ken B

Ken B — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:47:31 +0000

Speaking of the Apollo XVII site:

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

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

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

By: Bryan Feir

Bryan Feir — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:23:39 +0000

Ken B@9:

Well, I wouldn’t say total silence. The rocky surface that you’d be standing on would be quite capable of carrying the vibrations of sound into the suit you’d presumably be wearing, albeit rather attenuated.

I agree it sounds like a wonderful horror movie shot, though: complete silence as you see a suited figure with his arms in front of him as if warding something off, and the rapidly approaching wall of debris only seen reflected in the suit’s faceplate…

By: Lewis

Lewis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:00:45 +0000

Phil, There is also a new pic of the Apollo XVII landing site via LRO. It’s even better than the others released earlier!

By: LRO ziet een aard- eh… maanverschuiving | Astroblogs

LRO ziet een aard- eh… maanverschuiving | Astroblogs — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:40:27 +0000

[...] Met behulp van de Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) heeft men op een steile wand van de krater Marius, gelegen in de Oceanus Procellarum op de maan een soort van maanverschuiving gevonden. Het gebied op de afbeelding is 510 meter breed en de gehele Mariuskrater is 41 km doorsnede. De preciese lokatie is op 11,9 °N en 50,8° W, mocht je in het bezit zijn van een maan-TomTom. Vermoedelijk is de maanverschuiving ontstaan door een seismische oorzaak, bijvoorbeeld de inslag van een nabije meteoriet. De kleinste details op de foto zijn een meter doorsnede, even voor de duidelijkheid! De maan bleek onlangs rollende stenen te hebben en nu weer die maanverschuiving. D’r zit leven in de maan. Bron: Bad Astronomy. [...]

By: Ken B

Ken B — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:28:16 +0000

Something crashes nearby. The ground shakes. Rocks and dirt come rolling down the hill, straight at you.

All in total silence.

In space, no one can hear you scream.

By: Sili

Sili — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:26:09 +0000

Brobdingnagify, surely? There’re only two ns, not three.

By: Jack Mitcham

Jack Mitcham — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:38:37 +0000

Maybe it was caused by a Judoon platoon on the moon.

By: JohnW

JohnW — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:55:03 +0000

In keeping with your “aresain” comment about Mars, shouldn’t this be a “luneslide” or something?

By: «bønez_brigade»

«bønez_brigade» — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:57:36 +0000

That kinda “loosely” resembles the strip mining effects from the recent ‘Moon’ flick.

By: PlasticRectangle

PlasticRectangle — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:19:34 +0000

That seriously looks like water. I know that of course it’s impossible, but the resemblance to the gullies and similar things on Mars is just uncanny. Wow.

By: Emery Emery

Emery Emery — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:12:37 +0000

You mean, Look out above!

By: AKMask

AKMask — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:30:35 +0000

Carl Sagan ft Hawking – Drops a beat

Hey phil, I saw this on facebook today, and its an amazing song, just wanted to pass it on to someone else who also loves Sagan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

its from the Symphony of Science Project at http://www.symphonyofscience.com/

By: Dones

Dones — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:14:24 +0000

Cool! I love how great the resolution is from LRO. Do we have any idea how old the landslide is?