Never Before Seen Mysterious Boulder Formation Near Top of 6000ft Tall Mountain on the Moon

I've come across highly unusual formation on the Moon while working on shadow-region restoration project. So interesting I thought it deserved its own Space forum thread. All major info need to verify physical context and location of this formation should be available from two images below.

I've searched all available NAC's of this region and the entire north face of this 6000+ ft tall mountain is under shadow cover without exception, meaning these formations found in the shadow are never before seen. I think you will agree it's always nice to see an extraterrestrial landscape for the first time ever and even better if there is object that looks out of ordinary so enjoy.

First image shows the height and slope of the mountain. This 6000ft tall mountain is actually the central peak of Pythagoras crater which is a complex crater with central peak. Second shows the NAC photo where the formation was found in the shadows just North of the apex.



Restored view of the mountain peak region at half scale, around 1m / pixel. The upsloping, sunlit, southface of the mountain shows up as whitewashed area, and downsloping, northface of the mountain is the restored region normally under shadow cover.



With physical context of the area established, we can move on to the good stuff. The most obvious object of interest would be the formation consisting of four huge boulders sized about 50 meters (150ft) or around 100 pixels per side at original scale.


Restored view of shadowed area just off the mountain peak at original NAC photo scale of around 0.53m / pixel.



View of the quad-boulder formation, again original scale so about 0.53m per pixel.



So why is this formation interesting.

It's sitting on downhill slope just off the peak of a 2000m/6000ft tall mountain without visible physical sign of how it ended up there. Let me explain some common origin scenarios of large boulders found on sloping terrains on the Moon.

a) These four (50m x 50m) giant boulders originated as a single monster sized boulder that was thrown in the air by large meteor impact nearby. It landed somewhere near peak of the mountain, rolled down, then came to a stop where slope became less severe, and then split into four pieces.

For scenario a) the first and most important physical sign we want to see is the track made by the boulder somewhere between its current location and the peak of the mountain (gravity says all boulders must roll downhill). However in this case, there is no boulder track to be found.


b) These four boulders originated as a single larger boulder from nearby impact, landed softly in this exact spot on the side of a mountain and split into four pieces.

For scenario b) the first and most important physical sign we want to see is the sign of cratering that would have resulted if a 100m x 100m rock landed at its exact current location and split into four. However there is no crater or sign of impact to be found.


Feel free to add your thoughts on their possible origin or just simply enjoy this formation on the Moon knowing that you might be one of the first to ever see it in human history.

Very interesting indeed?

Q: are those lines "tracks" from smaller boulders?

Either way, no "huge" tracks to be seen huh?

Very odd indeed.

Nice find

reply to post by PINGi14


C) They were 4 smaller boulders that rolled down the hill and the slope of the hill ended up bringing them together. They could have each rolled down at different times.

Is that like a Baltic Sea anomaly?

Let me be the first to say, " they are just rocks"

They could have laid there for a very looooong time, and i guess that even on the moon things change over time ever so slowly, so the " tracks" could be gone.

Not a stonehenge, but nice find anyway, I think

Edit : When i look closer, there seem to have been a small sand slide, the stones are laying on edge of that sandslide, i think the whole slope came down and the stones just followed with it and came to rest right there, thats why there are no tracks.

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
reply to post by PINGi14

 

C) They were 4 smaller boulders that rolled down the hill and the slope of the hill ended up bringing them together. They could have each rolled down at different times.

Thanks for the input on possible origin but I think that would fit under scenario a). If boulders rolled, they would leave tracks and they only roll from higher elevation to lower elevation. Since this quad boulder formation is located so close to the peak, the only possible location where it could have rolled from as a whole or individually is the peak and you can bet 50m boulders would leave unmistakable trail that would be visible for a long time if they rolled.

Link

Above link is official LROC team post showing a mere 9m boulder that rolled and clearly visible track it left as it rolled. Note that they aged the track to be some ridiculously old 50 millions years old or so. So we can be confident four boulders each nearly five times the size of one shown in NASA link would leave a mark if it rolled even a couple of revolutions, and that mark would be visible for millions of years.

reply to post by Mianeye


Nice. It's definitely possible the original track got overrun by debris that seem to litter the area between the formation and the peak.

Cool find.
I am pretty convinced it's nothing more than some boulders that were put in that position by natural forces. But it puzzles the mind how they got their nevertheless.

Looked it over, and marked out a few things in the image.


The first thing I noticed was the the long sharp line that separated the boulders/pebbles and the ground. Marked with a red line. This is likely due to the slope of the hill, but I find it hard to tell. My first thought was that it was the outline of a blast, but frankly I have no clue.
There are some dark patches from the boulders leading up to what I assume is the peak of the mountain. These could be the path they took. I marked it with the blue dotted lines.
The small blue patches are craters I could find in the picture, but none seem big enough to produce the boulders. There might be a larger crater outside the edge of the image though.

The red circles are another interesting patch of rocks that kinda reminded me of ancient stone monuments like Stonehenge and similar things.

I think what we're seeing there is rocks accumulating at the break of slope on a debris chute.

(It kind of helps of you rotate the photograph so you can see it as if you were looking from below).

if you look upslope of the 4 rocks you can see, just below the boundary between light and shade) another boulder of a similar size, and some smaller boulders between this one and the rock accumulation. Running almost horizontally from the 4 boulders in a sinuous shape is what looks to me like a line that marks a change of slope.

My suggestion is that the 4 rocks originate from the summit ridge, have rolled (either together or one at a time) down the gully that acts as a debris chute until they reach a break of slope and/or some other obstacle that prevents further movement.

reply to post by PINGi14


Keep'em coming. It's easy to forget the scale but try to keep in mind their actual size. Each of these four boulders are about half a football field long and wide, and possibly almost as high! Also interesting the bottom one seems almost perfectly shaped to fit the two side ones which could be because they split from single boulder that's as unimagiablely big sitting on slope of a mountain peak no less. Hard to get estimate of heights but for sure they are casting some decent shadow.

Can i just say, i usually avoid these topics (its just rocks dammit!) but this is very interesting indeed. Not for any ancient civilization or aliens did it reason, just because they are in an interesting location and with no tracks and with an unusual formation. Good find sir, s&f

Maybe an ejected rock (or some rocks) impacted with a rock (or a field of rocks) that was/were already present at the location. I think that could explain the lack of cratering and track markings.

In support of my slopebreak theory, I went to the LRO quickmap site and did a line north to south through the group of rocks towards the summit - here's the result:



(I had to do two screendumps to get the line superimposed on the brightened version)

reply to post by PINGi14


How about option a) or b) with the addition of other ejecta or impact material falling down after the main boulder or separate boulders and filled in the scrape marks or impact crater?

Or another theory would be the four boulders are rocks that were always there, as bedrock, exposed and skewed at this weird angle when the bedrock was fractured and exposed during the impact that created the crater.

Rocks 101

Professor Eggbert.

I've seen those before

They are the eggs of face-hugging aliens waiting for someone to land near them.

*cue - Sigourney Weaver.

Originally posted by doobydoll
face-hugging aliens

You mean Sandusky or a bishop in the confessional with the vaseline.

What was that robots character name in aliens? Bishop, perhaps?

Wasn't the bishop a synthetic life form?

Sin thetic

As far as their origin, I am favoring the something buried got exposed theory at the moment. But we need more information and fortunately this area seems pretty popular so there is good amount of overlap.

Here is a view from slightly different angle at lower resolution but better quality original. M1103951438RE



It now appears that this formation may not consist of four different boulders. The top boulder and left boulder from the initial post appears to be joined.



Is anyone getting an impression what was initially thought to be the top boulder which now looks definitely attached to the left boulder is also hanging in the air, as in not touching the ground?

I'm revising my view slightly having looked again at the slopes using the LRO Quickmap.

This time I drew a line running across the boulders 'horizontally' - I drew it from right to left - making sure that I followed what I initially thought was marking a change in slope:



Looking at this slope diagram I'm wondering if this rough line is the trail left by the larger boulder on the right of the 4 as it has rolled down.

reply to post by onebigmonkey


Not sure which boulder you are referring to but boulder tracks leave very characteristic trail similar to the one from here. Those four boulders are size of half a football field and I'd imagine if they roll, they will leave a death trail that would be hard to miss.

Here is yet another view of the area. More samples can only mean more accurate analysis of the scene. M1096885750RE


Larger area at half scale