Mars - Craters

[StevenO]

NASA Spacecraft Reveal Largest Crater in Solar System - 06.25.08
New analysis of Mars' terrain using NASA spacecraft observations reveals what appears to be by far the largest impact crater ever found in the solar system.

Andrews-Hanna and co-authors Maria Zuber of MIT and Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., report the new findings in the journal Nature this week. A giant northern basin that covers about 40 percent of Mars' surface, sometimes called the Borealis basin, is the remains of a colossal impact early in the solar system's formation, the new analysis suggests. At 5,300 miles across, it is about four times wider than the next-biggest impact basin known, the Hellas basin on southern Mars. An accompanying report calculates that the impacting object that produced the Borealis basin must have been about 1,200 miles across. That's larger than Pluto.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/n ... 80625.html
And as usual the astronomers are clueless...

A new study using this information may solve one of the biggest remaining mysteries in the solar system: why does Mars have two strikingly different kinds of terrain in its northern and southern hemispheres? The huge crater is creating intense scientific interest.

The mystery of the two-faced nature of Mars has perplexed scientists since the first comprehensive images of the surface were beamed home by NASA spacecraft in the 1970s. The main hypotheses have been an ancient impact or some internal process related to the planet's molten subsurface layers. The impact idea, proposed in 1984, fell into disfavor because the basin's shape didn't seem to fit the expected round shape for a crater. The newer data is convincing some experts who doubted the impact scenario.

"We haven't proved the giant-impact hypothesis, but I think we've shifted the tide," said Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

[StefanR]

Please notify me, if a huge impact occurs, I know what to do:

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid= ... XsDA&hl=nl

[substance]

Yep, I was just reading that this morning and thinking about posting it here... Sounds pretty far fetched, but still I don`t know enough of the Electric theory to point an exact alternative cause. Probably something to do with plasma discharge, I`m still new in this area.

[folaht]

I haven't been long enough on the EU to know, but I remember seeing mars pictures and EU explaining types of mars craters,
but I haven't seen the the link I see been laid as of yet.

I was browsing [url2=http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... 4782#p4782]this thread[/url2] below and noticed something.

This picture here

http://www.fys.uio.no/super/dend/
Simultaneous Penetration of Flux and Antiflux Dendrites in MgB2 rings

Flux dendrites with opposite polarities simultaneously penetrate superconducting, ring-shaped MgB2 films. By applying a perpendicular magnetic field, branching dendritic structures nucleate at the outer edge and abruptly propagate deep into the rings. When these structures reach close to the inner edge, where flux with opposite polarity has penetrated the superconductor, they occasionally trigger anti-flux dendrites. These anti-dendrites do not branch, but instead trace the triggering dendrite in the backward direction. Two trigger mechanisms, a non-local magnetic and a local thermal, are considered as possible explanations for this unexpected behaviour. Increasing the applied field further, the rings are perforated by dendrites which carry flux to the center hole. Repeated perforations lead to a reversed field profile and new features of dendrite activity when the applied field is subsequently reduced.

I have absolute no idea what that means and what I'm looking at but I know one thing,
that looks an awful lot like the edge of a mars chasma.
See below:

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/mar ... sma_H1.jpg
http://moon.jaxa.jp/ja/mars/IMAGE/MEX/0 ... sma-Hi.jpg

[edit]
Okay, so I know what dendrites are...
[/edit]

What does this all mean?
Are chasma's really big craters?

[MGmirkin]

As someone cynical once said, "Astronomers' only way of explaining anything is by smashing things together..."
Not exactly an elegant solution. But about the only one when all you have as options to consider are gravity and thermal effects.

It's a good thing that dentists don't subscribe to astronomers' ethic, or they'd be smashing rocks together to generate their x-rays... And that would sure make a dentist's arms tired!

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

Yep, I was just reading that this morning and thinking about posting it here... Sounds pretty far fetched, but still I don`t know enough of the Electric theory to point an exact alternative cause. Probably something to do with plasma discharge, I`m still new in this area.

Well, I think we know what David Talbott's response would be... If one accepts the evidence he presents as internally consistent, and valid.

It is a leap, of course. But he makes some interesting arguments that probably shouldn't be ignored (regardless whether the final analysis proves or disproves the hypothesis; sometimes, it's the search that yields the most fruitful activity one way or the other).

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

I haven't been long enough on the EU to know, but I remember seeing mars pictures and EU explaining types of mars craters, but I haven't seen the the link I see been laid as of yet.

I was browsing [url2=http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... 4782#p4782]this thread[/url2] below and noticed something.

This picture here

http://www.fys.uio.no/super/dend/
Simultaneous Penetration of Flux and Antiflux Dendrites in MgB2 rings

Flux dendrites with opposite polarities simultaneously penetrate superconducting, ring-shaped MgB2 films. By applying a perpendicular magnetic field, branching dendritic structures nucleate at the outer edge and abruptly propagate deep into the rings. When these structures reach close to the inner edge, where flux with opposite polarity has penetrated the superconductor, they occasionally trigger anti-flux dendrites. These anti-dendrites do not branch, but instead trace the triggering dendrite in the backward direction. Two trigger mechanisms, a non-local magnetic and a local thermal, are considered as possible explanations for this unexpected behaviour. Increasing the applied field further, the rings are perforated by dendrites which carry flux to the center hole. Repeated perforations lead to a reversed field profile and new features of dendrite activity when the applied field is subsequently reduced.

I have absolute no idea what that means and what I'm looking at but I know one thing, that looks an awful lot like the edge of a mars chasma.

See below:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/mar ... sma_H1.jpg
http://moon.jaxa.jp/ja/mars/IMAGE/MEX/0 ... sma-Hi.jpg

[edit]
Okay, so I know what dendrites are...
[/edit]

What does this all mean?
Are chasma's really big craters?

*Looks into this further immediately*

*Bows in reverence and runs off...*

Thank you. I mean, really, THANK YOU. I hadn't yet seen that thread...

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

Umm, yeah, about that... Freaking awesome! I especially like several of the videos. It's also interesting to see the morphology differences based upon temperature, going from strongly "channeled" to more widely "sprayed" / "cloudy" look.

Again, thank you for this development. Seriously. I've been waiting for a connection along this line to be made. Will definitely read further into this ASAP. Guess I've got my work cut out for me, eh?

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

One is also tempted to point out this region of Earth which has been mentioned privately as extremely dendritic:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&t=h&ll=3 ... 24835&z=12

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&t=k&ll=3 ... 60712&z=13

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&t=k&ll=3 ... 15995&z=14

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

One should naturally also compare this to Valles Marineris, which the Thunderbolts group has called the largest arc scar(s) in the solar system...

http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-10.012 ... p=infrared
http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-8.3854 ... p=infrared
http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-8.3378 ... p=infrared

One can find better resolution shots of the last zoom on Google Earth via THEMIS' site

http://themis.asu.edu

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V01976002.html
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/newimg/V ... stretch=S2

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V14807001.html
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/newimg/V ... stretch=S2

Or there's HiRISE now...

(Layering in Upper Walls of Valles Marineris)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_006006_1715

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

And as an aside, here's a shot of a crater that's apparently been cut in half by whatever eroded away or ejected the contents of the Valles. I'll leave the mechanism up to the experts. But the stuff that was forwarded above certainly seems to match the dendritics ringing the Valles and argues strongly that SOMEthing interesting (and probably electrical) happened there.

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

TPODs related to dendritic ridges / channels:

(Dendritic Ridges—Eye of the Beholder)
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch ... holder.htm

(The Dendritic Ridges of Olympus Mons)
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch ... ridges.htm

(The Dendritic Ridges of Valles Marineris)
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch ... ridges.htm

(Dendritic Channels)
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch ... annels.htm

(The Siberian Traps)
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch ... ntraps.htm

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

(Avalanches injecting flux into the central hole of a superconducting MgB2 ring)
http://www.fys.uio.no/super/files/aage07.pdf

The ring image looks strikingly similar to many crater images I've seen...

(Fresh Crater on Lava Flows; view the grayscale with JP2 quicklook viewer!)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_005823_1595

(3-Kilometer Diameter Crater with Good Bedrock Exposures in Upper Walls)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007892_1865

(Fresh Double-Layered Crater with Possible Ponded Materials)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007235_2350

(Fading Rayed Crater in Daedalum Planum)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007735_1570


Then of course there's Olympus Mons...

(Upper Section of Northern Olympus Mons Basal Scarp)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007445_2035

(West Flank of Olympus Mons)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007656_2010

(The Edge of Olympus Mons)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_005019_1970

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin

[folaht]

Oh wow, great! Does this mean I made a scientific discovery?
Good enough to get me into a revised version of "A Short History of Nearly Everything"?

[MGmirkin]

Oh wow, great! Does this mean I made a scientific discovery?
Good enough to get me into a revised version of "A Short History of Nearly Everything"?

Certainly helped me make a connection... You might have to split the lion's share of the credit with StefanR from the other thread... But, umm... "You get a cookie!" ;o]

(Disclaimer: I have no actual cookies to give... But, let's pretend!)

Seriously though, this new info is quite interesting to me, personally. (What isn't these days, of course?)

This may renew or settle a couple debates (just my opinion). We'll see.

Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin