Getting closer to Vesta
The Dawn mission team released another image today of the giant asteroid Vesta, this time taken from about 2,300 miles away. At this distance the resolution is still somewhat coarse, with the smallest visible detail about 0.43 miles in size.
To the right is a cropped section of the full image, focusing in on what appears to be a very strange geological feature, indicated by the arrows. From what I can tell, the dark meandering streak looks like a rille or flow coming out of the mound or peak near the bottom of the image. Yet, this dark meander continues directly across a crater as if it were a wind-blown dust streak.
I really have no idea what geological process created this. I also suspect that the scientists don’t quite know yet either, though I am sure they have some good theories, mostly based on the very light gravity that should exist on a world only 330 miles in diameter. As I’ve already noted, however, it is going to take them a couple of months to digest the data they are getting and come up with some reasonable conclusions. It will be fun to finally find out what they have learned.
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I lean back from my desk, gaze upwards, and pump my fist into the air… HOAGLAND!!!!
http://theunexplained.tv/paranormal-podcasts/edition-64-richard-c-hoagland
Walter,
You beat me to it.
Yes, everyone’s favorite pseudo-scientist has solved this (and many other) mysteries of the Universe already, so please just shove all your real science out an air lock while a guy who used to sit next to Walter Cronkite (well a few chairs down anyway) during Apollo tells us all what’s really happening. :)
hahaha
the thing is with him it is like any picture nasa releases is ruins . i want to ask him if there is anywhere in space without ruins . seriously though my first glance at this picture i thought it looked like a big crack or fissure or something but as it goes through the crater as bob pointed out that makes me think my first response wrong . can’t wait to see whats next!
Oy. I feared that my simple act of pointing out an unusual and unique geological feature on Vesta would end up giving a fraud like Hoagland traffic.
I hope my fans will post links to my webpage in their comments to other websites (as Walter does here for Hoagland), not only to counter Hoagland’s silliness but to allow people an opportunity to read a more reasoned approach to planetary science.
I can always use the traffic as well.
Here’s an anti-Hoagland link, by way of compensation.
http://dorkmission.blogspot.com/
hehe yes sorry was making a joke . its crazy hoagland gets any traffic