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NASA websites are supposed to have a 'last modified' date -- that one didn't. If you check the link, it goes to planning documents from 2002.

From the link they cite as a source, trim off the url down to 'codez' ... it'll then redirect you to the 'NASA Portal' w/ FY2007 Budget & Planning Documents, which includes a PDF with the 2006 Strategic Plan.

(I don't know what they've done to the PDF, but you can't copy/paste from it cleanly ... but searching on the text in it lead me to NASA Strategic Goals, which has the highlights)

I'd still recommend looking that the PDF, as it seems to the only place on the Internet that has the full breakdown of the goals into the sub-goals -- see the Appendix, starting on page 43 (counting by the PDF, not by the document's internal numbering)

• To advance and communicate scientific knowledge and understanding of the earth, the solar system, and the universe.
• To advance human exploration, use, and development of space.
• To research, develop, verify, and transfer advanced aeronautics and space technologies.

gr8

  Here is the first part of the experiment you suggested. It turns out that the appropriations committee that handles Nasa's budget has experience some serious changes this year and as such we may see so new "spending" habits with future budgets, who knows. However, the individuals that currently sit on the appropriations committee responsible for NASA as of March 2006 is as follows:

Link to committee membership source
http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/0323_US_Congres s_Reorganizes_Committees_to.html

Link to Nasa Budget
http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/AN_Budget_04_deta il.html

Nasa Appropriation Committees

Senate Committee on Appropriations
Full Committee:
Thad Cochran (R-MS) Chair,
Robert Byrd (D-WV) Ranking

Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science:
  Richard Shelby (R-AL) Chair,
  Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Ranking

House Appropriations Committee
Full Committee:
Jerry Lewis (R-CA) Chair,
David Obey (D-WI) Ranking

Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies:
Frank Wolf (R-VA),
Alan Mollohan (D-WV) Ranking

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Full Committee:
Ted Stevens (R-AK) Chair,
  Inouye (D-HI) Ranking
Subcommittee on Science and Space:
Kay Bailey-Hutchison (R-TX), Chair
Bill Nelson (D-FL) Ranking

House Committee on Science
Full Committee,
Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) Chair,
Bart Gordon (D-TN) Ranking

Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics:
Ken Calvert (R-CA), Chair -
Mark Udall (D-CO) Ranking

Nasa Budget:

See Link (PDF Warning)
http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/AN_Budget_04_deta il.html

gr8

  Here is the first part of the experiment you suggested. It turns out that the appropriations committee that handles Nasa's budget has experience some serious changes this year and as such we may see so new "spending" habits with future budgets, who knows. However, the individuals that currently sit on the appropriations committee responsible for NASA as of March 2006 is as follows:

Link to committee membership source
http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/0323_US_Congres s_Reorganizes_Committees_to.html

Link to Nasa Budget
http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/AN_Budget_04_deta il.html

Nasa Appropriation Committees

Senate Committee on Appropriations
Full Committee:
Thad Cochran (R-MS) Chair,
Robert Byrd (D-WV) Ranking

Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science:
  Richard Shelby (R-AL) Chair,
  Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Ranking

House Appropriations Committee
Full Committee:
Jerry Lewis (R-CA) Chair,
David Obey (D-WI) Ranking

Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies:
Frank Wolf (R-VA),
Alan Mollohan (D-WV) Ranking

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Full Committee:
Ted Stevens (R-AK) Chair,
  Inouye (D-HI) Ranking
Subcommittee on Science and Space:
Kay Bailey-Hutchison (R-TX), Chair
Bill Nelson (D-FL) Ranking

House Committee on Science
Full Committee,
Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) Chair,
Bart Gordon (D-TN) Ranking

Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics:
Ken Calvert (R-CA), Chair -
Mark Udall (D-CO) Ranking

Nasa Budget:

See Link (PDF Warning)
http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/AN_Budget_04_deta il.html

But they might get pissy about billions vanishing into a black hole of government science whose results they cannot watch on TV.

There's far too many research results to be shown on TV. So they made a website. And that's just the stuff they could make public. NASA does a lot more than throw up rockets.

...and NASA plans to do it too for terrain mapping purposes (presumably within US borders):

http://esto.nasa.gov/obs_technologies_uavsar.html

UAVs are something we're going to have to get used to. Up next: pilotless passenger planes. Most modern aircraft are already equipped with auto-takeoff, auto-pilot (cruise), and auto-land. What more do you need? The ability to control them from the ground? That's being worked on for security reasons.

-Oliver / TreasureTunes.com

Following are the technical and management findings:

• The most significant technical concerns ( e . g . , composite fuel tank qualification, ion propulsion power unit test failures, and spacecraft structural design margins) have been resolved or a credible resolution path exists.
• Project management and contractor oversight have been strengthened through a combination of personnel and process changes. The projected cost overrun is in the range of 15 to 20 percent.
• Cost uncertainty has been reduced through resolution of technical concerns, management improvements, and detailed assessments by the IAT.
• The risk posture for the DAWN project at this stage of development (integration and test) is typical for a mission of its complexity.
• Schedule estimates place the launch between June and August The FY 2007 President's Budget request provides sufficient funding for the projected schedule.

In light of the foregoing, and in recognition of the fact that about half of the total mission funding has been committed and spent, the review decisions are:

• The DAWN project will immediately be reinstated to a level of full funding.
• JPL will immediately restaff the project and undertake to execute its completion.
• SMD and JPL will develop a detailed replan, including an integrated master schedule and updated cost analysis with appropriate confidence factors.
• JPL will undertake Propulsion Power Unit 500-hour life testing as soon as possible and will report progress and outcomes to SMD within 90 days.

DAWN has experienced some serious technical and programmatic issues in the course of its development, and accordingly, consideration of cancellation was justified. Reinstatement does not excuse past performance nor guarantee unequivocal future support. JPL and the DAWN project are, therefore, required to fully commit appropriate resources and management to the successful completion of this mission.

It appears to me that this isn't just one administrator correcting a second (though the "risk posture" comment in the findings list indicates something of that nature). There are specific problems outlined and the whole last paragraph lays down the law.

You know a thing is superhyped when v1.1 is mentioned on slashdot.
Mind you RoR is cool compared to j2EE. Then again, it's allmost as if C is cool when compared to J2EE. J2EE sucks big time for server side web - even the Java Gurus agree on that. End of discussion, no news here.
But RoR isn't the end all of ssi frameworks. Django is at least as good (I'd say better and cleaner than RoR) and Zope has been around since the ninties and still is years ahead of the rest. People with an overview over the technologies generally agree on that. I had a story submission (rejected) on that the other week. Check out the linked webcast, it's a very interessting analysis of a set of technologies and solutions:

|||||
Nasa/JPL Web Framework Shootout

In an educative and entertaining webcast, Sean Kelly, a Nasa/JPL software engineer, goes into the details of a project based comparsion between a set of web application frameworks and servers. Including the much hyped Ruby on Rails and Django. Various Java technologies, Ruby on Rails, Django, TurboGears and Zope are covered. Details and traits of each are mentioned. For people involved with web developement there are not to many suprises though, yet the presentation and Kellys commenting are fun to watch.
In a nutshell: EJB, Hibernate and various other Java flavours fail spectacularly, Zope scores a clear victory with Django, RoR and TurboGears relatively close behind. Development speed, error-gotchas, the need for hand-tweaking and the requirement of handwritten SQL and available documentation go into the measuring. As does an overall tongue-in-check "fun-factor". The details are interessting though. TurboGears 'error-driven' developement gets a positive review, RoRs automated controller generation aswell and Zope gets a complete rundown on it's astounding set of features. In the end long-time Java developer Kelly convinces us that - no matter what we do - we really, positively, don't want to use EJB or Hibernate for this kind of stuff. Very entertaining and informative indeed.
|||||

"The Guide itself explains that generating finite levels of improbability using an electronic brain and a strong Brownian motion producer (say, a cup of hot tea) was very well understood"

It's obvious that Dyson and Montgomery's "chance meeting over tea" was at one of Princeton/IAS' finite improbability machines.

And the "cup of tea" is really a universe of Time.

Once you've read the H2G2, da Nerd Code is revealed.

They also have to take into account possible moonquakes. They seem to be quite common and are powerful enough to move furniture.

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettl ement/Nowicki/SPBI104.HTM

Can anyone tell me why this engine is revolutionary? NASA has been testing these types of engine for some time.

For example, the X-43 which hit mach 9.6.

[url]http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43-mai n.html%5B/url%5D

DARPA (Defenase Advanced Research Project Agency) testfired a scramjet missile in 2001. The US Air Force has also been working with NASA on the developement of the X-43A which already flies at mach 9+ in its test flights (http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43-main.ht ml). Both the Air Force and Navy have been working to adapt the technology to their cruise missiles. What exactly makes this engine new? Is it a whole new concept design?

I did read it, thanks. And since you feel the article doesn't make a case for a lunar atmosphere, here's a paragraph from NASA's Moon Fact Sheet:

"Lunar Atmosphere Diurnal temperature range: (greater than)100 K to (less than)400 K (roughly -250 F to +250 F) Total mass of atmosphere: ~25,000 kg Surface pressure (night): 3 x 10-15 bar (2 x 10-12 torr) Abundance at surface: 2 x 105 particles/cm3 Estimated Composition (particles per cubic cm): Helium 4 (4He) - 40,000 ; Neon 20 (20Ne) - 40,000 ; Hydrogen (H2) - 35,000 Argon 40 (40Ar) - 30,000 ; Neon 22 (22Ne) - 5,000 ; Argon 36 (36Ar) - 2,000 Methane - 1000 ; Ammonia - 1000 ; Carbon Dioxide (CO2) - 1000 Trace Oxygen (O+), Aluminum (Al+), Silicon (Si+) Possible Phosphorus (P+), Sodium (Na+), Magnesium (Mg+) Composition of the tenuous lunar atmosphere is poorly known and variable, these are estimates of the upper limits of the nighttime ambient atmosphere composition. Daytime levels were difficult to measure due to heating and outgassing of Apollo surface experiments."

Yes, it's "tenuous" but if experts like NASA and Sir Arthur C. Clarke call it an atmosphere, that's good enough for me.

You cannot seriously take voyager as any way indicative of current technology. Thats like saying hurling a message in a bottle into the sea proves that it would take decades to cross an ocean with what we have now. And they were able to cross interstellar space in reasonable time periods back in the 1950s, with enhancements and refinements to the idea right up until recently. All this is technically possible with what we have right now, and could reach the closest star in forty odd years.

"For manned interplanetary and interstellar travel, it's not so much that we can make a reasoned argument against it, we don't even have a hint of the physics needed to make it work; current reactor, propulsion, and shielding technologies are many orders of magnitude away from what they would need to be for manned travel."

http://www.newpath4.com/millenialdawnpowerandlight secure21.htm
will provide the answers you now see lacking in the current offerings.
Real-time power, real-time thrust, forget large fuel tanks & batteries.

Lightweight spaceships being designed NOW at NASA: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/25aug_plas ticspaceships.htm
and if you read that article it says the lightweight foam resists radiation penetration. Gee, we're about 3-5 years away from Mars! Don't throw in yet.

This is really sad. (Obvious, I know, but I've been looking forward to everyday rocket trips since 1957.)

Yes and this NASA article throughly debunks Podkletnov claims.

.2.3. Tests of Podkletnov Claim. In 1992, a controversial claim of a "gravity shielding" effect was published by E. Podkletnov based on work done at Finland's Tampere Institute [17]. Regrettably, the article was not fully forthcoming with all of the experimental methods and jumped to the conclusion that a gravity shield effect was responsible for the anomalous weight reductions observed over spinning superconductors. Although others dismissed this effect on the grounds that it violates conservation of energy [42], this dismissal itself did not take into account that the claimed effect consumes energy.

From 1995 to 2002, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) attempted a full experimental replication of the Podkletnov configuration [43], but was not able to complete the test hardware with the available resources.

A privately funded replication of the Podkletnov configuration was completed by Hathaway, Cleveland and Bao, and the results published in 2003 [44]. This work "found no evidence of a gravity-like force to the limits of the apparatus sensitivity," where the sensitivity was "50 times better than that available to Podkletnov." Therefore, this rotating, RF-pumped superconductor approach is considered non-viable.

The claims are disputed and have not been verified by similar experiments.

The paper was released March 9, if it were as important as it would seem at first glance it would have made a huge impact in the physics community. It hasn't.

Nasa paper on alternate propulsion

Similar experiment that disputes results of this one.

Not saying it's not a find of some kind, but you might want to hold off on purchasing that hoverboard.

Does no one remember the X-43A?

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43-main.htm l

Wow. I don't know where to begin. Oh, I know- how about the fact that NASA DID NOT FAIL(article is from 2004, by the way- and they hit Mach 10).

before the £1m engine eventually crashes into the ground

A million British Pounds is US$1.7 million, which would put it firmly in the "seven figures" realm for JUST THE ENGINE. So I would think it would be reasonable to assume that eight figures ($10M) have been spent on the project in total.

Lastly- the Aussies benefited quite a bit from research NASA has made over the last couple of DECADES...

It only took NASA 2 tries to do this, but the second one was rather impressive. http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43-main.htm l

Nasa failed with a team of hundreds and a 9 figure budget.

The first much-ballyhooed flight may have failed (because the Pegasus rocket exploded, not because of a problem with the scramjet), but the Hyper-X program is considered a rousing success, with two successful hypersonic flights and a new jet-powered speed record of Mach 9.6.

That being said, I applaud the efforts of the University of Queensland, who is helping push the limits of aerospace knowledge. If they can do that on a shoestring budget, then that's all the better.

You can find some information on NASA engine testing here.

Miss? I thought they meant John Young. Always thought Gemini was a little cozy.

The classic example in neuroscience is the case history of Phineas P. Gage.

Space travel and Space Stations have provided us with a burgeoning catalogue of studies on the impact of extended stays in space on our and other metabolisms. The Biomedical Results From Skylab are an example of earlier studies. Space promises unique biological insights.

I disagree with your assessment of the connection between anticapitalism and belief in global warming. Communist nations despised capitalism, but were much more reluctant than Capitalist nations to believe that their industrial activities hurt the environment. Russia and its Eastern European satellites did much more harm to the environment than all the capitalist nations combined. China, the only surviving Communist nation worth considering, is second only to the United States in greenhouse gas emissions and appears to have no qualms about burning vast quantities of coal.

From a capitalist point of view, we can see the environment as a capital asset and see damage to the environment as economically equivalent to spending our capital on recurring operating expenses: it may work for a time, but eventually we'll have nothing left to invest for the future, but the recurring expenses won't have gone away. It's the same line of reasoning that says the United States is foolish to build up a multi-trillion dollar debt to pay for recurring operating expenses, such as welfare, other entitlements, and routine military expenditures (as opposed to wars, which are non-recurring).

My personal position, as an environmental scientist, is that only industrial capitalism can save us from global warming because only a market economy can produce the kind of rapid and economically efficient innovation that can drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions before it's too late. If we took a Communist, planned-economy position, we'd never get the job done in time and it would be much to expensive to afford anyway. The problem, as the libertarian economist Ronald Coase wrote back in 1960, is that a market economy can't manage global warming very well because there are no clear property rights to the atmosphere or the climate. If we assign property rights through auctioning emissions permits or if we correct for externalities via carbon taxes (many mainstream economists think these would be more efficient than the central planning necessary to determine the number of emissions permits to produce) then the market can allocate emissions efficiently and create incentives for entrepreneurs to develop and sell climate-friendly energy technology.

As to believing that humans cause global warming, there is a self-consistency to this theory that I don't see in contrarian pictures. We have models with source code that is available for public scrutiny, such as the GISS model used by Jim Hansen at NASA or NCAR's Community Atmosphere Model, that produce results that are quite consistent with historical data when and only when you include anthropogenic warming terms. If you include all known climate factors except anthropogenic warming terms, you get results that are inconsistent with historical data.

I haven't seen anyone demonstrating that Hansen's model or the CAM have serious scientific flaws, as you imply with your claims that there are big flaws that would be discovered if only scientists would open their code and calculations for detailed scrutiny.

Of course there are problems with the models: there are fudge factors that can be adjusted or manipulated to produce phony agreement between observation and theory and there are places where even with those fudge factors, the models disagree significantly with aspects of the observed climate, but still the agreement between model and observation is fairly close for the most part when, and only when, anthropogenic warming terms are included.

Meanwhile, so far as I am aware, no one who disagrees with th

>Blah, food already dealt with. We likewise have vast surpluses in all other areas. Even waste disposal ain't so hard. I'm not advocating the reloaction of everyone on earth to one big city. I'm just saying the earth isn't overpopulated.

I have yet to see a large mass of land that is in equilibrium - meaning not degrading fast. Underground water levels drop, species disappear, cats and dogs living together, people get fat because they have nowhere to go walking or running or bicycling, etc. Show me such land and extrapolate it then to the world.
Oh by the way, you could use some help from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/earth/landsat/sprawl .htm
According to that 10-15% of artificial cover on land does not constitute an equilibrium state - meaning the environment will be degrading fast. Good luck!

Yeah, right. I challenge you to document a direct quote in which Hansen "flatly declared that based on his computer model, the upcoming winter of 1988-89 would be the warmest on record." No climatologist would "flatly declare" such a prediction for an individual year. Other sources of variability are such that the climate models are incapable of making such a prediction for a single year. Even on a longer time scale, it is typical to present a range of scenarios reflecting the uncertainties in the projections.

Here is what Hansen says about it, including the figure with the predictions that he presented to Congress with the actual temperature data overlaid. Looks like the actual data falls pretty squarel in the range of his predicitons.

EdGCM http://edgcm.columbia.edu/ comes out of the NASA GISS lab http://www.giss.nasa.gov/ that James Hansen heads. EdGCM lets you run your own climate model on your computer! Check it out!

There is dust there. Since there is low gravity and low atmospheric pressure I am not sure how much of a wind it would take to lift that dust. You can see in the picture link the august 2005 self portrait of Spirt. http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20 060104a/Sol583A_Deck_L456atc-A712R1_br.jpg The panels are a little dusty but not that bad. I think the rovers will still be going by the time Vista is released. However by the time Microsoft releases a version of Windows with decent security I think we will have warp drive.

They stopped using the wheel about a year ago for a while because it was having problems as if the lubricant was wearing off, and it indeed did *not* free-spin when power was not sent to it. They simply dragged it around by running the rover backward. They found it easier to control the rover by dragging the bum wheel rather than by pushing it. They only used the wheel for close-up control when rocks were being targeted. Eventually it started working properly for a while, and now won't turn at all. It does not appear they have a "free spin" mode. Dragging is it.

I beleive they have a video about the last time the wheel was left dragging. They did some test-bed simulations of an Earthly rover copy. Page down to the "Driving Uphill Backwards" portion, about half-way down the page:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/spiri t01.html

http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f/7 82/2F195787507EFFAQ67P1209L0M1.JPG Yes, it looks like it's locked up. (have a look at the pic)

Doesn't really LOOK like it's free spinning:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f/781 /2F195698779EFFAQ15P1210L0M1.JPG

Bloody hard to fathom what source of energy could be elevating ocean and air temps...

Maybe this one?

So the 3 year results for WMAP are finally out. If you want to actually see what they are look at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/pub_papers/threeyear .html At a casual glance it looks like they are pretty much the same as their 1 year results (when combined with a whole host of other observations) which came out back in 2003 - namely the universe is still flat, dominated by dark energy, with 30 percent of the energy budget coming from non-baryonic dark matter. It seems that really all that's happened is that the error bars on the 6 cosmological parameters are now slightly smaller - as you would expect with more data... though not smaller by an order of magnitude. Maybe the biggest change is that they measure the epoch of reionization at a redshift of 7 now instead of way back at 15 or whatever it was before... that's more in line with what other measurements (and theory) has been suggesting. I'm I missing anything? Or is this basically a "Move Along. Nothing to see here." topic.

NASA will be adding a new "Universe Discovery Center" to the NASAquest Children's Activity Center at NASA centers.

It has nothing to do with the length of the runway, but more, the location of it. The nearer you are to the equator, the easier it is to leave for orbit... You're already moving faster near the equator than farther North (or South). Being in Florida, it's closer than both Chicago's and NY's airports.

There's also this little thing with consistent weather -- well, outside of the ocasional hurricane.

From NASA: http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/landin gfac.htm

NASA has done some testing in the automotive field (NHTSA). The centrifuge is pretty cool to see.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/everydaylife/SUV_ Rollover_test.html

Via wanted to call a chipset the KZ, but KZ stands for "Koncentrationslager"

http://www.pcguide.com/art/rwtiu0006Chipset-c.html

So they renamed it to the KT. Luckily for them Tyrannosaur Americans haven't survived in sufficient numbers to form an effective lobby group, since they would no doubt find the acronym KT very insensitive.

Kuwait's largest oil field has peaked and is now in decline,

And...

there is serious speculation that Saudi Arabia's giant Ghawar oil field is either at peak or is very close,

And...

Global warming is clearly a fact,

And...

The antarctic is melting off at an uncomfortable clip not to mention Greenland

And...

Population growth continues unabated

And...

The freakin' idiots in TFA want to go merrily galumphing about the galaxy like a bunch of wide-eyed disease ridden nuclear weaponed kindergartners. All they need to do is SNEEZE on a foreign planet and they could wipe the whole place out and turn it into one giant slimy stromatolite. That's my idea of being a good will ambassador. As if we have enough stored solar power (petroleum) to fuel such silliness.

On a daily basis I battle the darkest nihilists - whether of the Olduvai Theory Peak Oil variety or the Eco-Catastrophe Variety. And when a clueless bunch of science geeks go prancing about like some fourth grade ninnies playing "Star Trek" and cheerfully yapping about the intricacies of hyperdrives, when most of the world can barely feed itself and the privileged fat few use Microsoft Windows... well... it makes the case of the doom-mongers that much stronger.

Hyperdrive, my ass. It's this same inane idiocy that cut jillions out of the NASA science budget so we can send some space cowboys somewhere they don't really belong.

RS

Of course I fully expect the clueless technological fan boys who all to often spend their sad empty lives begging for mod points will give me a -1 Flamebait, regardless of the fundamental merits of my argument.

I honestly thought it was a typo in the summary when I read, "metric and English" units and had a bit of a chuckle to myself. "hee hee, the mix up between metric and metric units". England are on the metric system too and I don't know anyone that refers to the Imperial system as the 'English' system.

I just found this description on nasas site that has a nice summary of the state of the metric system:

Most of the world uses the metric system. The only countries not on this system are Burma, Liberia, Muscat, South Yemen, and the United States of America.

There's also a nice summary of the history of the metric system in the US here. Too bad we missed out on our chance to measure things in decades, roods and furlongs as proposed by Thomas Jefferson in his own metric system equivalent.

They already re-imaged it: Linky

Though, like you said, it doesn't matter: If you disagree with him, you're part of the conspiracy!

I had to actually check out what the MRO bandwidth actually *was*

According to the MRO telecommunications page, the max bandwidth from MRO is 6 mbps. That's faster than my Cable internet connection!

Also, according to this page, our slashdot article summary is wrong. MRO is sending back 34 terabits, not 34 terabytes. Still that's a lot of (geology) porn. Looking forward to it. I wonder if the DSN guys will throttle their bandwidth?

Yes, there are lots of circular structures in that part of Africa, but whether or not they represent impact structures can not be easily determined without referring to a geological map or doing some ground study. However, there are clues that these particular ones are not impact structrures.

For one thing, notice that the example at 22 06 53 N, 17 55 15 Ehas a circular "mate" just to the south, at 22 deg 04' 24" N. The northern one appears to have an outer ring and an inner raised zone -- suggestive of a complex crater. The southern one, though, just looks like a raised blob, which is not typical. Both have a similar "pinkish brown" colour compared to the surrounding, slightly darker and greener outcrops to the east (the really light zones are desert sand, rather than bedrock, and aren't relevant except as an indication of the topography -- they are lower). The southern of these two looks an awful lot like an ordinary granitic or other igneous intrusion. Its similarity to the ringed one that you mentioned makes me suspicious that they are both the same type of feature.

There are also a bunch of definite volcanoes in the area (it is in Chad), such as at: 21 deg 02' 51" N 17 deg 39' 58" E
21 deg 02' 48" 16 deg 30' 22" E. The former is fairly eroded, the latter is pretty recent -- it has dark-coloured lava flows visible around it. The caldera slightly to the SE has a saline lake in it (produces the blue colour).

There are a few more detailed explanations at NASA's "Earth from Space" website of astronaut photography. Though the explanations are only for a few scattered locations over a vast area, they are a great baseline for attempting interpretations elsewhere in the world as you explore things with Google Earth or similar tools. I highly recommend it.

I suspect alot of the circular structures seen in this area are just volcanic centers in various stages of erosive degradation or even exposure of the former magma chambers beneath them.

To figure it out for sure would still take fieldwork, but what information is known (e.g., take a look at those "Earth from Space" examples) makes me pretty skeptical they are impacts. But don't let that opinion discourage you from looking and asking questions.

Thank you, Google for bringing the fun of geology to everyone!

Yes, there are lots of circular structures in that part of Africa, but whether or not they represent impact structures can not be easily determined without referring to a geological map or doing some ground study. However, there are clues that these particular ones are not impact structrures.

For one thing, notice that the example at 22 06 53 N, 17 55 15 Ehas a circular "mate" just to the south, at 22 deg 04' 24" N. The northern one appears to have an outer ring and an inner raised zone -- suggestive of a complex crater. The southern one, though, just looks like a raised blob, which is not typical. Both have a similar "pinkish brown" colour compared to the surrounding, slightly darker and greener outcrops to the east (the really light zones are desert sand, rather than bedrock, and aren't relevant except as an indication of the topography -- they are lower). The southern of these two looks an awful lot like an ordinary granitic or other igneous intrusion. Its similarity to the ringed one that you mentioned makes me suspicious that they are both the same type of feature.

There are also a bunch of definite volcanoes in the area (it is in Chad), such as at: 21 deg 02' 51" N 17 deg 39' 58" E
21 deg 02' 48" 16 deg 30' 22" E. The former is fairly eroded, the latter is pretty recent -- it has dark-coloured lava flows visible around it. The caldera slightly to the SE has a saline lake in it (produces the blue colour).

There are a few more detailed explanations at NASA's "Earth from Space" website of astronaut photography. Though the explanations are only for a few scattered locations over a vast area, they are a great baseline for attempting interpretations elsewhere in the world as you explore things with Google Earth or similar tools. I highly recommend it.

I suspect alot of the circular structures seen in this area are just volcanic centers in various stages of erosive degradation or even exposure of the former magma chambers beneath them.

To figure it out for sure would still take fieldwork, but what information is known (e.g., take a look at those "Earth from Space" examples) makes me pretty skeptical they are impacts. But don't let that opinion discourage you from looking and asking questions.

Thank you, Google for bringing the fun of geology to everyone!

Yes, there are lots of circular structures in that part of Africa, but whether or not they represent impact structures can not be easily determined without referring to a geological map or doing some ground study. However, there are clues that these particular ones are not impact structrures.

For one thing, notice that the example at 22 06 53 N, 17 55 15 Ehas a circular "mate" just to the south, at 22 deg 04' 24" N. The northern one appears to have an outer ring and an inner raised zone -- suggestive of a complex crater. The southern one, though, just looks like a raised blob, which is not typical. Both have a similar "pinkish brown" colour compared to the surrounding, slightly darker and greener outcrops to the east (the really light zones are desert sand, rather than bedrock, and aren't relevant except as an indication of the topography -- they are lower). The southern of these two looks an awful lot like an ordinary granitic or other igneous intrusion. Its similarity to the ringed one that you mentioned makes me suspicious that they are both the same type of feature.

There are also a bunch of definite volcanoes in the area (it is in Chad), such as at: 21 deg 02' 51" N 17 deg 39' 58" E
21 deg 02' 48" 16 deg 30' 22" E. The former is fairly eroded, the latter is pretty recent -- it has dark-coloured lava flows visible around it. The caldera slightly to the SE has a saline lake in it (produces the blue colour).

There are a few more detailed explanations at NASA's "Earth from Space" website of astronaut photography. Though the explanations are only for a few scattered locations over a vast area, they are a great baseline for attempting interpretations elsewhere in the world as you explore things with Google Earth or similar tools. I highly recommend it.

I suspect alot of the circular structures seen in this area are just volcanic centers in various stages of erosive degradation or even exposure of the former magma chambers beneath them.

To figure it out for sure would still take fieldwork, but what information is known (e.g., take a look at those "Earth from Space" examples) makes me pretty skeptical they are impacts. But don't let that opinion discourage you from looking and asking questions.

Thank you, Google for bringing the fun of geology to everyone!

Yes, there are lots of circular structures in that part of Africa, but whether or not they represent impact structures can not be easily determined without referring to a geological map or doing some ground study. However, there are clues that these particular ones are not impact structrures.

For one thing, notice that the example at 22 06 53 N, 17 55 15 Ehas a circular "mate" just to the south, at 22 deg 04' 24" N. The northern one appears to have an outer ring and an inner raised zone -- suggestive of a complex crater. The southern one, though, just looks like a raised blob, which is not typical. Both have a similar "pinkish brown" colour compared to the surrounding, slightly darker and greener outcrops to the east (the really light zones are desert sand, rather than bedrock, and aren't relevant except as an indication of the topography -- they are lower). The southern of these two looks an awful lot like an ordinary granitic or other igneous intrusion. Its similarity to the ringed one that you mentioned makes me suspicious that they are both the same type of feature.

There are also a bunch of definite volcanoes in the area (it is in Chad), such as at: 21 deg 02' 51" N 17 deg 39' 58" E
21 deg 02' 48" 16 deg 30' 22" E. The former is fairly eroded, the latter is pretty recent -- it has dark-coloured lava flows visible around it. The caldera slightly to the SE has a saline lake in it (produces the blue colour).

There are a few more detailed explanations at NASA's "Earth from Space" website of astronaut photography. Though the explanations are only for a few scattered locations over a vast area, they are a great baseline for attempting interpretations elsewhere in the world as you explore things with Google Earth or similar tools. I highly recommend it.

I suspect alot of the circular structures seen in this area are just volcanic centers in various stages of erosive degradation or even exposure of the former magma chambers beneath them.

To figure it out for sure would still take fieldwork, but what information is known (e.g., take a look at those "Earth from Space" examples) makes me pretty skeptical they are impacts. But don't let that opinion discourage you from looking and asking questions.

Thank you, Google for bringing the fun of geology to everyone!

But here is a post about the imagery that is currently "ready" there will also be a full color imagery dataset by release time.

There is also an add-on to view Venus imagery in World Wind. Though that is not yet with a 3D texture yet.

Don't get me wrong.. GE is a nice image viewer, but you can't really expand it's boundries that far.