Comments on: Like asteroid, like moon

By: Tribeca Mike

Tribeca Mike — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:16:48 +0000

John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie predicted this is in their 1934 song “Santa Claus is Coming To Town.”

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:49:59 +0000

Oooh! Can I do the joke?

Wait! That’s no moon . . .

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:44:45 +0000

The BA said:

The set on Vesta is nicknamed — for obvious reasons — “Snowman”.

Isn’t there a Snowman crater near one of the Apollo landing sites on our moon?

By: CR

CR — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:15:33 +0000

Finally found the pic I was talking about, from Cassini’s October 2005 flyby of Dione. (I knew it was Dione… I just missed the pic in my rush to find it!) http://www.ciclops.org//view_media.php?id=8265
It’s a very big pic, and you’ll have to scroll down & around to see the whole of the landscape. The bisected crater I mentioned is on the right limb of the crescent, near the lower right corner of the pic. (There are actually two bisected craters in that area, close to each other, but the leftmost one has a better defined central peak.)

…Should I have said “follow link to Dionenate”?

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:45:49 +0000

@^ Levi in NY : You beat me to that suggestion. Many asteroids (eg. Itokawa & Mathilde*) and some small moons (eg. Phobos) are thought to be loosely bound, low density, “fluffy” agglomerations of stuff rather than entirely solid bodies.

I also wonder whether it could be co-incidence or secondary impacts – a fragment of debris kicked out lunar ray~style by the initial impact then orbiting briefly before spiralling back to make a new crater (or series of craters) in line with the original one?

@ 19. Chris Spratt : “There is an old double crater in Quebec Canada.”

Indeed there is – the Clearwater Lakes :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearwater_Lakes

Plus I’m pretty sure there’s a few other known examples from elsewhere too.

@14. Tom Callahan : “Shouldn’t the one on Enceladus be “Snowman”, given that it’s icy? The one on Vesta can be “Pig-Pen’s Snowman”.”

Yep. I was thinking the same thing. The “Snowman” on icy Enceladus, the “Stone man” on Vesta perhaps?

———————-

* See :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25143_Itokawa#Description

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/253_Mathilde#Description

for more.

By: Levi in NY

Levi in NY — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:44:01 +0000

Maybe it wasn’t an object with two moons, but a rubble pile that was torn apart by Saturn’s gravity?

By: Familiar Vesta « Space « Science Today: Beyond the Headlines

Familiar Vesta « Space « Science Today: Beyond the Headlines — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:06:47 +0000

[...] the earlier cratering record in the south. (Check out the familiar-looking “Snowman” crater on Discover’s Bad Astronomy blog.) “The team is now measuring the craters, identifying ridges, hills and [...]

By: Chris Spratt

Chris Spratt — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:02:59 +0000

There is an old double crater in Quebec Canada.

By: Sawdust Sam

Sawdust Sam — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:53:08 +0000

It’s clearly a universal copyright mark – there’s one on every lump of rock if you look in the right place.

By: Crux Australis

Crux Australis — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:45:05 +0000

Doh! CR beat me to it. I’ll show myself out.

By: Crux Australis

Crux Australis — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:44:11 +0000

Proof that NASA is using the same stock photos for their hoaxes!!11!!eleven!!

By: BigBob

BigBob — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:55:40 +0000

I dug out this reference to a chain of craters on the Moon (our moon, the Moon). It’s another triple, pretty much in the middle of the disk as we see it.
http://www.lunarrepublic.com/atlas/sections/e4.shtml
Bob

By: Tom Callahan

Tom Callahan — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:48:28 +0000

Shouldn’t the one on Enceladus be “Snowman”, given that it’s icy? The one on Vesta can be “Pig-Pen’s Snowman”.

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:11:58 +0000

There’s another such feature on Iapetus, near the east end of the dark oval.

By: CR

CR — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:54:35 +0000

Just tried a quick look through the CICLOPS image diaries, but I couldn’t locate the photo I was thinking of. I tried many of the rocky/icy moons: Dione, Enceladus, Tethys, Rhea, Mimas… weird. If I find it, I’ll post a link later.

By: SkyGazer

SkyGazer — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:40:56 +0000

“so it would be very unlikely to get them so close together unless they were from…”
You really know how to tickle the alufoilhats don´t you.

By: CR

CR — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:33:54 +0000

Cue the “NASA is just re-using setpieces and models over again” conspiracy crowd in 3… 2… 1…

Seriously, although these crater chains are similar, it’s interesting to notice just how different they are. And that’s apparent just by looking at the pics a little closely, as Phil has described in this post.

Speaking of craters, I still like the picture of–oh, which Saturnian moon was it? Dione, I think–that shows a crater & its central peak practically sliced in half by a long rift. (Sorry I don’t have a link, but I had seen it at the Cassini image archive a couple years ago.) So much astronomy and geology in one pic… I wish we could go there in person, but I’m glad we at least have these tantalizing robotic views.

By: Robin Byron

Robin Byron — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:27:20 +0000

I hope that’s not an ownership mark from some civilization gone mad with galactic property rights.

By: CraterJoe

CraterJoe — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:03:00 +0000

I think the Aorounga Craters are much more interesting and closer to home.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:55:17 +0000

@Sharkey it wouldn’t have to be the low-atmosphere, low-gravity body that did the breaking up, or they may never have been a solid object to begin with.

Or it means Frosty is real, and he loves us, or at least moons.

By: Larian LeQuella

Larian LeQuella — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:32:38 +0000

I have no real scientific conclusion to draw here

It’s COOL! What other conclusion is required?

By: Sharkey

Sharkey — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:27:08 +0000

Why would a comet disintegrate before hitting a low-atmosphere, low-gravity body like the Moon or Mercury? Would tidal forces be strong enough, given the relatively-small size? Or would the tidal forces of nearby bodies (the Earth or the Sun, respectively) cause the break-up?

By: Lupine

Lupine — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:22:20 +0000

Or a big footprint.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:17:25 +0000

The remains of frosty the snowman

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:14:00 +0000

Crop rings? Proof that aliens are out there.