(AFP/Getty Images) - Vehicles sit in traffic on the Croatan Highway as people evacuate the Outer Banks area in Southern Shores, North Carolina. Hurricane Earl bore down on North Carolina early Friday, promising to lash a vast stretch of the US East Coast with tropical storm force winds, heavy rain and dangerous surf.(AFP/Getty Images/Mark Wilson)
(AP) - Waves surround an ocean-front hotel deck as a man looks on while Hurricane Earl passes offshore in Nags Head, N.C., Friday, Sept. 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
(AFP/KATC3) - In this image courtesy of KATC3 news channel in Lafayette, Louisiana, 13 workers from an offshore oil platform that caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of the Louisiana coast, wait for rescue after they jumped to the sea.(AFP/KATC3)
(Reuters) - People walk along the beach as the area awaits Hurricane Earl on Hatteras Island in Buxton, North Carolina September 2, 2010. REUTERS/Richard Clement
(Reuters) - Boats spray water to extinguish a fire on an oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy off the Louisiana coast September 2, 2010.REUTERS/Lee Celano
(AP) - FILE - In this Jan. 25, 2006 photo, Ann-Marie Johnson, National First Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild second from right, joins Gone With the Wind cast, from left: Ann Rutherford, Cammie King Conlon, Mickey Kuhn, Patrick Curtis and Fred Crane to celebrate actress Hattie McDaniel's stamp, seen at left, at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Calif. Cammie King Conlon, the former child actress who portrayed the doomed daughter of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in 'Gone With the Wind,' has died at the age of 76. She died of lung cancer Wednesday morning at her Fort Bragg home on California's north coast, said friend Bruce Lewis. Her son, Matthew Ned Conlon, was by her side. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
(AP) - Maria Sharapova, of Russia, follows through on a serve to Iveta Benesova, of the Czech Republic, at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
(Reuters) - Boats spray water to extinguish a fire an oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy off the Louisiana coast September 2, 2010. The oil and gas platform burst into flames in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, but the crew of 13 escaped and there were no signs of an oil spill, the U.S. Coast Guard said. REUTERS/Lee Celano (UNITED STATES - Tags: DISASTER ENVIRONMENT ENERGY BUSINESS IMAGES OF THE DAY)
After replacing Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority President in 2004, Abbas was seen as the moderate who would close the deal with Israel. Since then, despite an endless round of diplomatic handshakes, a peace deal remains elusive
(AP) - Boats are seen spraying water on an oil and gas platform that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana., Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. All 13 crew members were rescued. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
(AFP/KATC3) - In this image courtesy of KATC3 news channel in Lafayette, Louisiana, 13 workers from an offshore oil platform that caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of the Louisiana coast, wait for rescue after they jumped to the sea.(AFP/KATC3)
(AP) - The surf pounds the Oceana Pier as Hurricane Earl heads toward the eastern coast in Atlantic Beach, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
(AFP/Getty Images) - People stand on a pier as waves crash below them in Southern Shores, North Carolina. Hurricane Earl bore down on a vast stretch of the US East Coast on Thursday, as tens of thousands of people fled North Carolina's barrier islands to avoid dangerous winds and surf.(AFP/Getty Images/Mark Wilson)
(AP) - Mirka Federer, left, wife of Roger Federer, and Vogue magazine editor-in-chief Anna Wintour watch as Roger Federer takes on Andreas Beck at the U.S. Open tennis tournament on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
(AFP) - Sydney rehearsal : The Chooky Dancers, from a remote Northern Territory island north-east of Australia's Arnhem Land, rehearse their production "Wrong Skin" at the Sydney Opera House. (AFP/Greg Wood)
(AP) - In this Sept. 1, 2010 photo, Cory Freeman looks at two stranded goats near Roundup, Mont. The goats were rescued after nearly two days and are in good condition. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Sandy Church of the Rimrock Humane Society) NO SALES.
(AP) - In this Sept. 1, 2010 photo, two goats are stranded on a railroad bridge south of Roundup, Mont. The goats were rescued after nearly two days and are in good condition. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Sandy Church of the Rimrock Humane Society) NO SALES
(AP) - In this photo taken Sept. 1, 2010, two goats, center right, are stranded on the ledge of a railroad bridge south of Roundup, Mont. The goats were rescued after nearly two days and are in good condition. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Sandy Church of the Rimrock Humane Society) NO SALES.
(AFP) - Sherwin-Williams paint store assistant manager Emily Venable takes precautions and duct-tapes the store windows as Hurricane Earl approaches the Outer Banks city of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.(AFP/Paul J. Richards)
(AP) - File - British physicist Stephen Hawking attends the 2010 World Science Festival opening night gala performance at Alice Tully Hall on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 in New York. Physicist Stephen Hawking says God wasn't necessary for the creation of the universe. In his new book, 'The Grand Design,' the British scientist says unraveling a complex series of theories will explain the universe. The book, written with American physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow, will be published Sept. 9 2010. (AP Photo / Evan Agostini)
(AP) - Clouds from the outer bands of Hurricane Earl appear over the Atlantic ocean at sunrise in Nags Head, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010 as Earl approaches the east coast. Hurricane Earl with winds swirling at around 145 mph continued to barrel toward the Eastern Seaboard and forecasters were trying to pinpoint exactly how close the strongest winds and heaviest surge would get to North Carolina's fragile chain of barrier islands. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
Photographer Massimo Berruti documents the aftermath of the worst flooding to strike Pakistan in 80 yearsPhotographs by Massimo Berruti / Agence Vu for TIME
As summer ends, a multimillion-dollar renovation of the town's famed Grand Pier remains unfinished, the latest in a series of unfortunate events to plague a popular but seemingly cursed U.K. tourist destination
Mario Tama has been covering Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath since Day One. A selection of images from his new book, Coming Back, New Orleans Resurgent
(Reuters) - This undated handout photo of an x-ray shows both sides of the lungs with a growth on the left side of the lung, which could possibly be lung cancer. REUTERS/National Cancer Institute/Handout
(Reuters) - Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking speaks at the Perimeter Institute For Theoretical Physics in Ontario, June 20, 2010. REUTERS/Sheryl Nadler
(AFP/File) - God no longer has any place in theories on the creation of the Universe due to a series of developments in physics, British scientist Stephen Hawking, seen here, has said in extracts published from a new book.(AFP/File/Shaun Curry)
(AFP) - Two-year-old Indonesian boy Ardi Rizal puffs on a cigarette in the yard of his family home in Sumatra. A two-year-old Indonesian boy who smoked about 40 cigarettes a day has kicked the habit after receiving intensive specialist care, a child welfare official has said.(AFP/Ahmad Naafi/SRIWIJAYA POST/File)
This album is a continuation of Cats 2007 and Cats 2008, which feature my cats Rosie, China and Olive, who has grown considerably since 2007. Also included are my sons 2 cats Chewie and Gizmo. Please comment on any of the photos in any of the 3 albums.
To learn more about this wonderful memorial, please visit the official website at: http://www.wwiimemorial.com/default.asp?page=home.asp
Thank You Webshots for featuring my album on September 1, 2010! I am honored.
(AP) - This image provided by the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center shows Bethany Storro prior to surgery. Storro has undergone surgery at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center according to hospital spokeswoman Amber Shoebridge Wednesday night Sept. 1, 2010. An unidentified woman threw acid in her face in downtown Vancouver Monday evening. (AP Photo/Legacy Emanuel Medical Center)
(Reuters) - Seven-and-a-half-month old Tanisha Overbeeke smiles while resting on top of a leaf of the Victoria Amazonica at the Rotterdam Blijdorp Zoo September 1, 2010. Children could be photographed on top of the leaf, under the condition that they do not weigh more than 15 kg (33 lbs). The Victoria Amazonica blossoms over two nights producing flowers that are white on the first night, which then turn pinkish-red by the second night. Its leaf could have a diameter of up to two-and-a-half meters. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen (NETHERLANDS - Tags: SOCIETY)
(AP) - Dogs heading to Totally Dog day center in Miami, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, sit in their seats. Daily up to 25 dogs board the yellow school bus for their ride to the five acre fully fenced doggy playground complete with a bone shaped swimming pool. Some of the dogs are dropped off by their owners in business parking lots and others are picked up at their homes. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
(AFP/Getty Images) - US Marine honor guards carry a flag-draped casket of a soldier killed in Afghanistan during his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery August 31, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia. The number of US soldiers killed in the Afghan war in 2010 is the highest annual toll since the conflict began almost nine years ago, according to an AFP count Wednesday.(AFP/Getty Images/Alex Wong)
(AP) - FILE - In this 2007 photo, shows Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac. who involved in an 'on-again, off-again' relationship, apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010. Her decomposing body was found there three days later. (AP photo/The Bakersfield Californian, Felix Adamo) MANDATORY CREDIT
(AP) - In this photo taken Monday, Aug. 30, 2010 and provided by the Chicago Zoological Society, two female orphaned California sea lion pups are seen at at Brookfield Zoo, in Brookfield, Ill, where they are getting acclimated to their new surroundings. The two unnamed pups, born on June 7 and June 10, were abandoned by their moms at a popular tourist attraction-Pier 39 in San Francisco-which is a highly unusual place for a California sea lion to give birth. Deemed unreleasable back in the wild because of the difficulty of rehabilitating young pups, the Chicago Zoological Society stepped forward and offered to give the sea lions a permanent home at Brookfield Zoo. (AP Photo/Chicago Zoological Society, Jim Schulz) NO SALES
(AP) - In this photo taken Monday, Aug. 30, 2010 and provided by the Chicago Zoological Society, two female orphaned California sea lion pups are seen at at Brookfield Zoo, in Brookfield, Ill, where they are getting acclimated to their new surroundings. The two unnamed pups, born on June 7 and June 10, were abandoned by their moms at a popular tourist attraction-Pier 39 in San Francisco-which is a highly unusual place for a California sea lion to give birth. Deemed unreleasable back in the wild because of the difficulty of rehabilitating young pups, the Chicago Zoological Society stepped forward and offered to give the sea lions a permanent home at Brookfield Zoo. (AP Photo/Chicago Zoological Society, Jim Schulz)
(Reuters) - A Capuchin monkey carries an infant on its back at the Living Links Centre in Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland August 31, 2010. Edinburgh Zoo’s brown Capuchin monkeys have had a record breeding season with six new infants joining two groups. The new youngsters,which are still to be sexed, will join a further 18 capuchin adults and juveniles. REUTERS/David Moir (BRITAIN - Tags: ANIMALS ENVIRONMENT)
(AP) - In a July 16, 2010, photo provided by Procter & Gamble, Pittsburgh Steelers' Troy Polamalu poses for photos in Los Angeles. The long, flowing black hair that tumbles out of Polamalu's helmet and down his back--it's nearly three feet long--has been insured for $1 million by Head & Shoulders, the shampoo brand that is endorsed by the Steelers safety. (AP Photo/Procter & Gamble, Bob Riha Jr.) ** NO SALES **
(AP) - The cast of 'Modern Family' react as they accepts the award for outstanding comedy series during the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010, in Los Angeles. From left are presenter Ted Danson, Julie Bowen, Sarah Hyland, Sofia Vergara, Rico Rodriguez and Eric Stonestreet. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
(AP) - In this photo taken Friday, Aug. 27, 2010, fireworks light the sky during the 'Navalnitsa-2010' international fireworks festival in the town of Logoisk, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Minsk, Belarus. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
(AP) - The full moon rises just east of Livingston, Mont. on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010 evening. The August full moon is sometimes called the green corn moon, and is the smallest, farthest full moon of the year. (AP Photo/The Bozeman Chronicle, Erik Petersen)
(AP) - Jane Henson, left, donates some of Jim Henson's early puppets, including the original Kermit, to the Smithsonian Institution, during a ceremony at the National Museum of American History, in Washington, on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
(AFP/File) - A Kuwaiti man and his wife walk outside one of the biggest malls in Kuwait city in 2005. A Kuwaiti MP proposed Wednesday state-aid for male citizens to take second wives, in a bid to reduce the large number of unmarried women in the oil-rich emirate.(AFP/File/Yasser al-Zayyat)
(AP) - This 2009 photo provided by Joann Biondi shows her 2-year-old Maine coon cat, Lorenzo, in an image named Rasta Cat that was taken in Miami. Lorenzo is an ordinary, working class feline — very mellow and independent, Biondi said. He just happens to like fashionable shirts, having his picture taken, walking on a leash, sitting up, rolling over and jumping through hoops on command. (AP Photo/Joann Biondi) NO SALES
(AP) - A bee sucks nectar from a sunflower which stands on a field in front of the 'Wilder Kaiser' mountain in Ellmau, Austrian province of Tyrol, Monday, Aug. 23, 2010, as temperature reaches up to 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit). (AP Photo / Kerstin Joensson)
(AP) - A Palestinian woman reads from the Quran, Islam's Holy book, as the moon shines during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in the West Bank city of Nablus, Sunday Aug 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)
(AP) - A Marine carry team, holding the remains of Cpl. Christopher J. Boyd, from Palatine Ill., carry the transfer case off the aircraft upon arrival Saturday, Aug. 21, 2010 at Dover Air Force Base, Del. According to the Department of Defense, Boyd died in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, while supporting combat operations. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
(AP) - Tiksi, a 15 year-old Siberian tiger, licks her two-month-old female cub at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Neb., Friday, Aug. 20, 2010. The cub, which was born on June 22, 2010, is on display for the first time Friday, and the zoo is asking for the public's help to name it.(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
(AP) - In this Aug. 10, 2010 photo, a detail from a sheet of $100,000 gold certificate bills is seen inside a plastic casing at a United States Treasury Department display at the World's Fair of Money in Boston. The bills, introduced in 1934, are the largest denomination ever issued by the federal government. Not meant for public use, the notes were used for federal bank transfers. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
(Reuters) - Wiebke Jeske and Edith Zeppenfeld from Germany perform in the women's synchronized swimming duet free routine final at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest August 8, 2010. REUTERS/Peter Andrews (HUNGARY - Tags: SPORT SWIMMING)
(Reuters) - Artwork made of push pins by artist Eric Daigh is seen on display at Grand Central Terminal in New York August 4, 2010. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (UNITED STATES - Tags: SOCIETY IMAGES OF THE DAY)
This image shows a stack of layers on the floor of an impact crater roughly 30 kilometers across. Many of the layers appear to be extremely thin, and barely resolved.
In broad view, it is clear that the deposit is eroding into a series of ridges, likely due to the wind. Below the ridges, additional dark-toned layered deposits crop out. These exhibit a variety of textures, some of which may be due to transport of material.
The light ridges are often capped by thin dark layers, and similar layers are exposed on the flanks of the ridges. These layers are likely harder than the rest of the material, and so armor the surface against erosion. They are shedding boulders which roll down the slope, as shown in the subimage. Although these cap layers are relatively resistant, the boulders do not seem to accumulate at the base of the slope, so it is likely that they also disintegrate relatively quickly.
The subimage itself is 250 meters wide. The light is from the left. Boulders are visible on the slopes of the ridges along with thin dark layers including the cap layer, but they are absent on the spurs where the resistant cover has been eroded. This demonstrates that the boulders come only from the dark layers, and are not embedded in the rest of the deposit.
The Orion Nebula reveals many of its hidden secrets in a dramatic image taken by ESO’s new VISTA survey telescope. The telescope’s huge field of view can show the full splendour of the whole nebula and VISTA’s infrared vision also allows it to peer deeply into dusty regions that are normally hidden and expose the curious behaviour of the very active young stars buried there.
VISTA — the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy — is the latest addition to ESO’s Paranal Observatory (eso0949). It is the largest survey telescope in the world and is dedicated to mapping the sky at infrared wavelengths. The large (4.1-metre) mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors make VISTA a unique instrument. This dramatic new image of the Orion Nebula illustrates VISTA’s remarkable powers.
The Orion Nebula is a vast stellar nursery lying about 1350 light-years from Earth. Although the nebula is spectacular when seen through an ordinary telescope, what can be seen using visible light is only a small part of a cloud of gas in which stars are forming. Most of the action is deeply embedded in dust clouds and to see what is really happening astronomers need to use telescopes with detectors sensitive to the longer wavelength radiation that can penetrate the dust. VISTA has imaged the Orion Nebula at wavelengths about twice as long as can be detected by the human eye.
As in the many visible light pictures of this object, the new wide field VISTA image shows the familiar bat-like form of the nebula in the centre of the picture as well as the fascinating surrounding area. At the very heart of this region lie the four bright stars forming the Trapezium, a group of very hot young stars pumping out fierce ultraviolet radiation that is clearing the surrounding region and making the gas glow. However, observing in the infrared allows VISTA to reveal many other young stars in this central region that cannot be seen in visible light.
Looking to the region above the centre of the picture, curious red features appear that are completely invisible except in the infrared. Many of these are very young stars that are still growing and are seen through the dusty clouds from which they form. These youthful stars eject streams of gas with typical speeds of 700 000 km/hour and many of the red features highlight the places where these gas streams collide with the surrounding gas, causing emission from excited molecules and atoms in the gas. There are also a few faint, red features below the Orion Nebula in the image, showing that stars form there too, but with much less vigour. These strange features are of great interest to astronomers studying the birth and youth of stars.
This new image shows the power of the VISTA telescope to image wide areas of sky quickly and deeply in the near-infrared part of the spectrum. The telescope is just starting to survey the sky and astronomers are anticipating a rich harvest of science from this unique ESO facility.
Credits:
European Southern Observatory, Paranal Observatory
NASA, ESA, and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute)
Explanation:
This is the most detailed view to date of the entire surface of the dwarf planet Pluto, as constructed from multiple NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken from 2002 to 2003.
Hubble’s view isn’t sharp enough to see craters or mountains, if they exist on the surface, but Hubble reveals a complex-looking and variegated world with white, dark-orange, and charcoal-black terrain. The overall color is believed to be a result of ultraviolet radiation from the distant Sun breaking up methane that is present on Pluto’s surface, leaving behind a dark, molasses-colored, carbon-rich residue.
The center disk (180 degrees) has a mysterious bright spot that is unusually rich in carbon monoxide frost. This region will be photographed in the highest possible detail when NASA’s New Horizons probe flies by Pluto in 2015.
The Hubble images are a few pixels wide. But through a technique called dithering, multiple, slightly offset pictures can be combined through computer-image processing to synthesize a higher-resolution view than could be seen in a single exposure. This series of pictures took four years and 20 computers operating continuously and simultaneously to accomplish.
Martian landforms have been shaped by winds, water, lava flow, seasonal icing and other forces over millennia. This view shows color variations in bright layered deposits on a plateau near Juventae Chasma in the Valles Marineris region of Mars. A brown mantle covers portions of the bright deposits. Researchers have found that these bright layered deposits contain opaline silica and iron sulfates.
This TerraSAR-X image shows a thunderstorm cell with unusually heavy rainfall off the Caribbean coast of Panama, visible across in the upper half of this image as a blurred area. The scene recorded here extends over an area of about 18 by 64 kilometres and was generated in dual-polarisation mode, a method that substantially increases the information content of an image.
The colours are created by superimposing two separate images (red and green) of the same area taken simultaneously in this mode using two signals having different polarisation settings, together with a third image (blue) which is calculated from the difference between the original images. Now, the different reflection mechanisms become visible – the green colouration indicates a surface reflection, where the radar signal is being reflected straight back to the antenna. Red tones indicate a double reflection, and there is virtually no indication of this in the scene depicted here, since it occurs primarily in urban areas. Blue tones can be seen in the area of the thunderstorm cell, and are designated as ‘volume scatter’ because the signal is reflected back to the radar antenna by a multiplicity of individual raindrops and hailstones.
What lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundred light years away towards the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and dark dust lanes, appears, on the left, like a billowing fire. But fire, the rapid acquisition of oxygen, is not what makes this Flame glow. Rather the bright star Alnitak, the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion visible just above the nebula, shines energetic light into the Flame that knocks electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogen gas that reside there. Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. The above false-color picture of the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) was taken in infraredlight, where a young star cluster becomes visible. The Flame Nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, a star-forming region that includes the famous Horsehead Nebula, visible above on the far right.
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Posted in Deep Space, Space Fotos Tagged: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit, ESO, Flame Nebula, J. Emerson, NGC 2024, Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, VISTA
This infrared snapshot of a region in the constellation Carina near the Milky Way was taken shortly after NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) ejected its cover. The “first-light” picture shows thousands of stars and covers an area three times the size of the moon. WISE will take more than a million similar pictures covering the whole sky.
The image was captured as the spacecraft stared in a fixed direction, in order to help calibrate its pointing system. The mission’s survey will be done while the satellite continuously scans the sky, and an internal scan mirror counteracts the motion to create freeze-frame images. The team is working now to match the motions of the spacecraft and the scan mirror precisely.
This eight-second exposure shows infrared light from three of WISE’s four wavelength bands: Blue, green and red correspond to 3.4, 4.6, and 12 microns, respectively.
This false-color subimage shows the north polar layered deposits at top and darker materials at bottom exposed in a scarp at the head of Chasma Boreale, a large canyon eroded into the layered deposits.
The polar layered deposits appear red because of dust mixed within them, but are ice-rich as indicated by previous observations. The water ice in the layered deposits is probably responsible for the pattern of fractures seen near the top of the scarp.
The darker material below the layered deposits may have been deposited as sand dunes, as indicated by the cross-bedding (truncation of curved lines) seen near the middle of the scarp. It appears that brighter, ice-rich layers were deposited between the dark dunes in places.
Exposures such as these are useful in understanding the recent climate variations that are likely recorded in the polar layered deposits.
Aptly-named Mojave Crater in the Xanthe Terra region has alluvial fans that look remarkably similar to landforms in the Mojave Desert of southeastern California and portions of Nevada and Arizona.
Alluvial fans are fan-shaped deposits of water-transported material (alluvium). They typically form at the base of hills or mountains where there is a marked break, or flattening of slope.
They typically deposit big rocks near their mouths (close to the mountains) and smaller rocks at greater distances. Alluvial fans form as a result of heavy desert downpours, typically thundershowers. Because deserts are poorly vegetated, heavy and short-lived downpours create a great deal of erosion and nearby deposition.
There are fans inside and around the outsides of Mojave crater on Mars that perfectly match the morphology of alluvial fans on Earth, with the exception of a few small impact craters dotting this Martian landscape.
Channels begin at the apex of topographic ridges, consistent with precipitation as the source of water, rather than groundwater. This remarkable landscape was first discovered from Mars Orbital Camera images. Mars researchers have suggested that impact-induced atmospheric precipitation may have created these unique landscapes.
This HiRISE image at up to 29 cm/pixel scale supports the alluvial fan interpretation, in particular by showing that the sizes of the largest rocks decrease away from the mouths of the fans.
Posted in Planets, Space Fotos Tagged: Alfred McEwen, HiRISE, JPL, Mars, Mars Orbital Camera, Mojave Crater, NASA, University of Arizona, Xanthe Terra
2008 scandalz.net
Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism
Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet.
The two definitions immediately preceding are condensed from the works
of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject
with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human
knowledge.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
