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Weird Geological Features Spied On Mars
astroengine writes "The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera carried by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted a strange geological feature that, for now, defies an obvious explanation. Found at the southern edge of Acidalia Planitia, small pits with raised edges appear to hug a long ridge. So far, mission scientists have ruled out impact craters and wind as formation processes, but have pegged the most likely cause to be glacial in nature."
The canals on mars are back!
"to have been deliberately buried."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It was Cthulu rising.
Well, I'd like for it to be burrows or casings...
In other news, scientists are still scared to say, "Umm... we really don't know, but we'll take a WAG at it." There's no shame in admitting you don't know. Just like we don't know for sure how old the earth is. It's ok to not know.
A fault line, with small volcanoes following along it?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
n/m
I'm not saying it's aliens, but that "ridge" was clearly a space craft docking terminal used by ancient aliens and their flying saucers.
Those are acne scars from when Mars was much younger, you insensitive clods!
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They're a pain to get rid of. Probably what led to the extinction of the Martians.
Sinkholes on the ridge, possibly triggering landslides? The top of the ridge where these features are looks less sharp to me. Glaciers make sense too and.... OMG, features on Mars! Life forms, aliens, CONSPIRACY!!! Nevermind. It's the Rothschilds fer shure.
This is clearly a classic Giorgio Tsoukalos formation.
Could it be their base? or perhaps mars bear cavelry huts?
It's a sandworm, there is probably lots of OIL on Mars and they will need to fight sandworms soon.
It is definitely a weird or maybe even a troubling sign that there are spies on Mars and even more strangely there are EARTH features on that other planet. GEOlogical?
You can't handle the truth.
Thunderbolts (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050608craters.htm), yet again.
Looks to me like Jesus was on Mars.
http://chainsawsuit.com/2012/08/08/footprints-in-the-sand-part-1/
Its obviously the remains of a railway formation that has been precision bombed in a Martian war. See how the curve turns to meet a similar line running diagonally from left to right, although the actual meeting point has been completely obliterated? And the heavier bombardment to the top left was obviously the site of the junction station!
So much for canals.....
but have pegged the most likely cause to be glacial in nature
Bend over, boyfriend!
I for one welcome our new pit digging overlords.
Alright I'll admit it. It was me. Sorry. I didn't think anyone would mind, but sand castles get wiped out too quickly on Earth.
Real life pit of sarlacc anyone?
it's just worm sign guys get over it.
Martian kimchi!
Putting the "anal" back into "analyst"...
of course it's worm sign.... now where did I leave my thumper...
Have gnu, will travel.
Looks like the toxic refinery to me.
Just because it came from Mars doesn't mean it's automatically weird.
Silly humans.
I recall that when Clarke was still alive he noted several geological features which were of personal interest to him, one of which was a "sandworm" type of feature very much like this one.
It's easier to find Clarke's off-the-cuff remark that some features look like banyan trees, but I know he wrote another piece about features other than those. Hive mind, can you please provide the citation that I cannot?
Aren't they just roads?
It's just a response to one of the rovers drawing a giant penis. Martians are responding saying theirs is bigger.
Oxygen burp.
http://tinyurl.com/cu8h3st
SFW
Graboids
Zoom in more at the end of the trail and you'll see remains of a thumper.
Aint this the reason we have a Wall-e on the red planet in the first place?
If you figure each put was made by a chunk of ice, which laid on the surface to trap blown debris, then subliminated away, you'd get something like that. The one to the right with ones inside of on pit would have been made by a ice boulder fracturing apart then its parts sublimating away.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
looks like to me.
That looks almost exactly, but not quite unlike a Brontosaurus foot print and tail drag line...
There's a strange thing! I don't understand it. You don't understand it. Top Men don't fully understand it, or are divided on some fine point.
ERGO, [non sequiter crackpot hypothesis unsuggested by the data]! See? Finally, I have been proven right.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
He knows everything about Mars. And if he doesn't know, he'll make it up!
http://www.enterprisemission.com/
...always making a mess of a perfectly good landscape.
Dear god, it's the sandworms!
Circular edges are precipitate.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Congratulations, You found the arsecrack of Mars.
So glad to see my Tax money put to good use finally.
Is it really that hard to put a scale on images? It kind of helps and typically makes the science more interesting.
There are quite similar to the depressions in Moreux Crater (image PSP_010695_2225 ; 42 degrees N / 44.6 degrees E). They might be Kettle Holes, formed when a retreating ice sheet or glacial flood leaves behind huge chunks of debris rich ice that later melts (or sublimates) creating distinctive hollows in glacial sediment.
Moreux Crater Kettle Holes
so ... many .. questions.
Actually it's the mouth and those are the teeth. Mars is just a big orange PacMan.
Is it dead or did it just decide to hibernate until quarters were invented and sent into space? More Research Needed (tm).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Also: See the covers of the Hitchhiker's Guide books for examples of similar features.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Duh...Aliens.
They are obviously jawa sand crawler tracks.
I looked through the pictures, seems to be some tits, some balls.
This close they always look like landscape. Nope, you're lookin at balls.
Ulla!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Go on google maps and take a gander pretty much anywhere in the northern portions of Siberia. It looks an awful lot like this.