The Secrets of Schröteri Crater

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by Aggie Man
My best guess is that the image shows a boulder

Seriously? This looks like a boulder to you?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1cf44321b4af.png[/atsimg]

Not a typical weathered boulder one would encounter here at home, but yeah. Boulders come in all shapes and sizes. Really, I don't know. It could be space debris.

Looking just south of the object and trail (assuming the final resting place is north), it appears as though there is a field of "rubble" that the object may have become dislodged from. What is the topography of the region? Is the trail heading at a downward slope?

What could have dislodged it? Maybe a moonquake. Maybe a micro meteor struck it like a cosmic cue-ball. Really, I don't know, just spit-balling ideas.

Originally posted by zorgon
Seriously? This looks like a boulder to you?

It looks a lot like a cluster of boulders to me. Something that used to be one big rock. And you can see where heat/cold expansion cracking has busted it up into smaller pieces, and some of them have ended up rolling down the hill into the little gully where there are other rocks like just like them. Some of the smaller rocks didn't even make it all the way down, and are stuck on the hill along the trail line.

reply to post by Blue Shift


Best theory so far, Blue.

Originally posted by scojak
reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

 

I was wondering this as well. They are very consistent, so I assume the "divergences" are just due to how the "rover" moves. I can't think of why this would happen though. Maybe for taking consistent samples? Just my first thought. Anyone else have some input about this? Has anyone seen tracks like these before? S+F

Look at my post in this thread. Same patterns as these and the older ones Zorgon posted, albeit on Mars, not the moon. Again these tracks seem to just start and stop, with no apparent landing site. I have a theory on this, but I need to do a bit more research first.

Originally posted by zorgon
The bright object is about the size of a house and it too has those odd tracks

Actually, it looks like there's another rolly-boulder in the same big image (/M129635733RE) you posted above. It's up a little ways on the right side of the image, and from the track, it looks like it rolled right to left out of a dark shadow.

Looking at the periodic identical bulges on the trace seems to suggest a boulder with certain indentation on part of the surface. And from looking at the very long high-res image, the path of the trace which veers to the right near the end seems consistent with the shape of the landscape. Also a large chunk on the path could be part of the original object. I'm leaning towards boulder...

Excellent find. S&F.

Couldn't this be the remains of one of the many probes/rockets that both the Americans and Russians crashed into the surface of the moon?

Ok, for those of you who are going with the rolling boulder theory, lets look at the evidence.

I have taken this image to give you an idea of the overall topography of the ridge near where this anamoly is. I have drawn a red line where the starting point of the track is. Now from this starting point, would you say it is uphill or downhill? For a boulder to start rolling, there has to be some energy of some sort to start the ball rolling (excuse the pun), what kind of energy, assuming this is uphill, would make the boulder roll uphill? Is there any evidence in the picture of a significant energy source to make this happen?


In this image, I have drawn a red line in exactly the same spot as the last picture (track starting point). As you can see (arrows) there is a hillock that was flattened, by this "rolling boulder", but it did not break the momentum, this must have taken a fair ammount of energy then. So my questions for the last image are also pertinent to this image too.




In this image, I have looked at the inprints this rolling boulder has made. As you can see with the large indentations, there is an area that has been left undisturbed by the rolling boulder, indicating there must be a hollow somewhere in the boulder. I copied this area ( in black) and the entire area of disturbance (in white) then alligned them next to the pile of boulders/odd shaped boulder. Can you see any boulder there with the same area as the disturbance?



I also have to mention the angle at which the boulder has come to rest. Judging by the supposed path it rolled down (which would also suggest that it must have gone end-over-end, judging by the relatively narrow marks, next to the large marks pattern), it has come to rest at a very awkward angle.



That evidence is why I am not subscribing to the rolling boulder theory.

I didn't know rocks could look like giant lug nuts and sheet metal, if this was an image taken on Earth by a satellite, I would call it a processing factory or something similar.
I don't know how anyone can call these rocks.

reply to post by AmatuerSkyWatcher

Good call on that hillock, although it's impossible to say without knowing the exact topography of the terrain.

I'm interested in the patterns in the tracks. At points it seems that two distinct tracks merge into one, and then separate again. I don't know how a boulder would achieve this.

reply to post by FOXMULDER147


A boulder could achieve that pattern if it had a shape say, like a heart. You would see a single track then a double track as the giant heart boulder rolled.

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
reply to post by FOXMULDER147

 

A boulder could achieve that pattern if it had a shape say, like a heart. You would see a single track then a double track as the giant heart boulder rolled.

Good point, but I don't see any heart shaped boulder. Also, it would have to be pretty large looking at those tracks.

reply to post by AmatuerSkyWatcher


Great work. Now can you estimate the size of the "rolling boulder"?

It does look like it could be one of the old Soviet lunar rovers back from the 70`s.

en.wikipedia.org...

moving rocks are a strange thing indeed.
It just so happens we have similar things happening right here on earth.
www.frontiernet.net...

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
reply to post by FOXMULDER147

 

A boulder could achieve that pattern if it had a shape say, like a heart. You would see a single track then a double track as the giant heart boulder rolled.

I don't see a boulder as irregularly shaped as you're imlying being able to roll on as straight of a course as is evidenced by this photo. Not unless it were rolling down an extremely steep grade. Get yourself a bit of tinfoil and make a model of what you think it would look lime and try to roll it without it going off course and you'll get the idea.

reply to post by jadedANDcynical


I'm not saying I believe a boulder made those tracks, just pointing out what it would have to be shaped like to duplicate those tracks. My tin foil hat works just fine.

Originally posted by Blue Shift

Originally posted by zorgon
Seriously? This looks like a boulder to you?

It looks a lot like a cluster of boulders to me. Something that used to be one big rock.

If that's a boulder, I assume you could find some pictures of similar boulders on Earth or lots of them elsewhere on the Moon? It looks like it has an awful lot of straight edges to me.

It might be boulder, but it looks gun shaped and smoking at first glance.

Originally posted by fockewulf190
It does look like it could be one of the old Soviet lunar rovers back from the 70`s.

Maybe.. they did lose track of one of them

That is quite an anomaly...sure looks out of place there...