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The Mystery of Mars' Bizarre Plumbing
astroengine writes "Hesperia Planum: once a Martian plain — a regular, no-surprises, run-of-the-mill plain. But now, thanks to researchers who used high-resolution imagery from the armada of satellites currently orbiting the Red Planet, Hesperia Planum holds a mystery. Sinuous rilles, a common feature in ancient volcanic regions on Mars and the Moon, appear across Hesperia, but they appear to have no origin and no destination. If they were formed by lava flows, wouldn't they originate near volcanoes? This oddity has led Tracy Gregg and her student Carolyn Roberts of the University at Buffalo to postulate an entirely different rille formation process that could make Hesperia Planum a whole lot more interesting than scientists ever thought."
Giant Sand Worms.
Hooray! Percival Lowell was right! These were canals created by an advanced martian civilization!!! Life? PROVEN!!!
In other news, Space Makes Geology Fun Again!
I blame the ice warriors....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I see the same thing after scooping the kitty litter... Giant Space Kitties, perhaps?
Sectoids did it.
I don't know much about the geology, but could it possibly be the result of a shield volcano?
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Finally I have a name for my new hipster band: Sinuous Rilles!
Canals.
FTFA: "The question I have is what made the channels,"; said Gregg. Was it water, lava, or something else? "
It's like deja-vu all over again. Makes you wonder what deep discoveries await behind this channel notation... not to mention how long it will take us to generate enough political will to invest what it takes to find out.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
He can now squeeze a few more months of life out of his insane Mars conspiracy theories.
How insane, you ask?
Try this: Buck Rogers View-Master Reels .
That's some mighty good crackpottery, right there!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
So- from what I understand- they don't see the source of the lava to cause the rilles so they think water created them.
Maybe- or maybe all that remains is where the rilles were deepest- and the shallower parts have been filled in by dust.
Or... if it's formed from subterranean lava tunnels that collapsed as postulated... maybe the rest of the tunnel- the part that connects it to the volcano hasn't collapsed.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
My bet is that Mars was "destroyed" by something. At least it's ability to support life. Maybe whatever asteroid hit earth 65 million years ago was part of a chain that hit mars and caused all the water to vaporize. Or maybe even something more spectacular like another planet between Earth and Jupiter blowing up, with mars being caught in the middle, and all the evidence we have left is the asteroid belt.
As they said in the article, it appears to be the border of two different geological periods
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"Everybody assumed these were huge lava flows," said Gregg. "But if it turns out to be a lake deposit, it's a very different picture of what Mars was doing at that time." It would also make Hesperia Planum a good place to look for life, because water plus volcanic heat and minerals is widely believed to be a winning combination for getting life started.
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So maybe there is life... or was. Won't be able to tell until we get people there to start looking for fossils. We need a new "Wild West" frontier, everyone go to Mars.
Wasn't he a character in Harry Potter?
I read the title as "Mystery of Man's Bizarre Plumbing" and thought it was some bizarre feminist screed.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/webnews/120707electriccraters.htm
So say I
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
www.timecube.com
"The Mystery of Mars' Bizarre Plumbing"
Mars's. It's Mars's. That's how you spell and pronounce it. "Mars" is not plural, so Mars' makes no sense.
... Nope! Chuck Testa.
Why is this lead piece written as a teaser instead of giving us the punch line? This is at odds with most Slashdot leads. I hope this doesn't catch on as it has for abstracts for technical papers.
Plate Tectonics possibly, could be lots of smaller ones on mars. In the pic though, it almost looks like the line with the arrows, starts at one crater and ends at another crater. Almost as if something (or someone) landed in a crater for shelter and tunneled to another one...have we been there already?
Where's my tinhat,...
#include bier;
Why does there have to be a reason for them? Can't they just be rilles for rilles' sake?
Martian news junkies are awaiting word from K'breel, Speaker for the Council. I suppose it's possible Mars has no reporters left with intact gelsacs, though.