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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."

12 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Wormsign! by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, I'd like for it to be burrows or casings...

  2. I'm not saying it's aliens by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:I'm not saying it's aliens by Nadaka · · Score: 3, Funny

      James Cameron is the dude most likely to build a film studio on mars so he could produce an authentic looking set.

  3. Re:we don't know by femtobyte · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given that the blurb on the HiRISE page say "but for now this is a mystery," I'm not seeing any evidence of scientists being scared of saying they don't know. In fact, making a high profile general public article highlighting stuff you don't understand seems like the exact opposite of the scientists being scared to point out what you don't know.

  4. Bah! by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Funny

    Those are acne scars from when Mars was much younger, you insensitive clods!

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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. Re:we don't know by dantotheman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Instead of "I don't know" they can just throw massive error bars on the figure. For example, the earth may be 4.5 billion years old +- 20 billion years. (Thats right, it may not be created until the future...)

  6. Re:Fault line? by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 3, Informative

    No tectonics. The planet's core is supposed to be frozen, because it it so much smaller than Earth.

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    All rites reversed 2010
  7. Re:we don't know by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    The earth is 4,500,000,027 years old.

    They told my it was 4.5 billion years old when I took high school geology back in 1986.

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    Have gnu, will travel.
  8. Re:Canals? by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They look more like solifluctations, or possibly something related to palsas or pingos.

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    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  9. Re:Didn't A.C. Clarke note this spot? by cuncator · · Score: 3, Informative

    Archive.org to the rescue. Maybe the 9-June-2003 issue of Marsbugs (#23), page 5, "Martian Spiders"?: http://web.archive.org/web/20080725114636/http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/volume10old.html

    Man, just realized how long ago Spirit and Opportunity were.

  10. Re:we don't know by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Yea, I mean, seriously 4.4 billion years old? It could just as easily be 4.5 or 4.3 billion years old."

    Precise Dating is everything.

    Some tourists in the Chicago Museum of Natural History are marveling at the dinosaur bones. One of them asks the guard, "Can you tell me how old the dinosaur bones are?"

    The guard replies, "They are 70 million, four years, and six months old."

    "That's an awfully exact number," says the tourist. "How do you know their age so precisely?"

    The guard answers, "Well, the dinosaur bones were 70 million years old when I started working here, and that was four and a half years ago."