The explanation for hexagonal craters on the Moon & elsewhere

Hi folks,

I've loved researching the ways of the ancients, the builders who created sites such as Puma Punku & Tihuanaca, Macchu Picchu, etc. When researching the local solar system I came across fascinating alternative modes of thought which posited all sorts of wonderful ideas, with lots of nice photographic evidence too (though much of it was sanitised, probably eight years ago or thereabouts, certain databases just dropped off the web, or were converted into low-resolution files..)

One thing which often got brought up was the odd hexagonal craters which seemed to pop up on many of the Moons & Planets. Why were they there? How does a hexagon form in nature? Well, the answer is simple, and it's one of those that you either know, or you don't have a clue. Now unfortunately my ATS upload is having a problem, it doesn't seem to want me to upload anything at the moment, so I can't show you a photo. But I can point you in the right direction, and perhaps one or two of you helpful chaps & chapesses can post a couple of images for the wellbeing of the thread?

Basically, it comes down to heat convection patterns - if you look for an image on Google search which is along the lines of:

'Hexagonal convection patterns in hot oil'...

You will see the amazing shapes formed by the immense heat which is circulating in a pan of oil when it is heated to a very high temperature. Consider therefore that when the surfaces of the planets & moons were very young, they were exceedingly hot, and would have demonstrated fixed convection patterns in hexagonal form. Thus, when the surfaces cooled down, some of the hecagonal shapes were frozen in place as shallow, hexagonal craters - the craters which seem too shallow to be craters? They are convection patterns in the surface liquid, in a region where heavy elements made the molten surface more dense, causing the pattern to be held in place while the material cooled down.

Sorted? Right then, that's my good deed for the day.

Cheers,


FITO.

duckduckgo.com...

Off the top of my head would think it has to do with the mass of the asteroid, the velocity of its impact as well as the impact angle

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment
This is all relative to vibration/frequency no? Similar experiments are performed to iron filings and magnets and sand and sound.

It definitely lends credence to the more esoteric doctrines.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment
Electrical discharge

There's a couple of ideas, one based around impacts causing the surface to shatter along existing lines of weakness, another looks at hte behaviour of basalt material when hit by very big objects and the way it subsequently cools down.

Or aliens and stuff.

Correct for three points

Electrical discharge. Same as the craters on the edge of craters.

Perhaps this will interest you:
www.thunderbolts.info...

Probably the same reason beehive compartments are hexagonal. It's a common shape that arises from equal external pressure being put on an expanding circular compartment.

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
There's a couple of ideas, one based around impacts causing the surface to shatter along existing lines of weakness, another looks at hte behaviour of basalt material when hit by very big objects and the way it subsequently cools down.

Or aliens and stuff.

That's what I have seen too, here are a couple of citations, the first one talks about the tectonic network, so it sounds like the existing lines of weakness type hypothesis:

www.jpl.nasa.gov...

The crater in the lower half of the image has a hexagon shape rather than the normal circular outline. The regional surface/subsurface fracture system deflected the impact generated pressure waves along the tectonic network, causing the linear sides we see in the image. Meteor Crater in northern Arizona has a similar flat sided shape, in that case a square rather than a hexagon. The Arizona crater impacted into sandstone and limestone that had a right angle fracture system.

It's interesting they reference linear sides for Meteor crater, but squarish rather than hexagonal.

This abstract talks about the effects of shrinkage, didn't Seinfeld have an episode on that?

A new explanation for the hexagonal shape of lunar craters.

The possibility of impacts of large meteorites on the thin crust of the early moon accounting for the formation of the hexagonal lunar craters is discussed. Solidified basalts comprising a lunar crust of thickness 10 to 50 km characteristic of the earliest stage in lunar evolution are shown to have a large-scale hexagonal pillar structure, due to the effects of shrinkage.

originally posted by: 2Faced
Perhaps this will interest you:
www.thunderbolts.info...

Could be of interest to cranks who like crank nonsense.

The People Who Believe Electricity Rules the Universe

EU is completely at odds, however, with everything modern science has determined about the universe.

"At best, the 'electric universe' is a solution in search of a problem; it seeks to explain things we already understand very well through gravity, plasma and nuclear physics, and the like," said astronomer Phil Plait, who runs the blog Bad Astronomy at Slate. "At worst it's sheer crackpottery like homeopathy and astrology, making claims clearly contradicted by the evidence."

"From what I've seen, most EU claims are on the cranky end of [the] scale. That's why most astronomers ignore it: No evidence for it, tons of evidence against it, and no support mathematically or physically."

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
There's a couple of ideas, one based around impacts causing the surface to shatter along existing lines of weakness, another looks at hte behaviour of basalt material when hit by very big objects and the way it subsequently cools down.

Or aliens and stuff.

That's what I have seen too, here are a couple of citations, the first one talks about the tectonic network, so it sounds like the existing lines of weakness type hypothesis:

www.jpl.nasa.gov...

The crater in the lower half of the image has a hexagon shape rather than the normal circular outline. The regional surface/subsurface fracture system deflected the impact generated pressure waves along the tectonic network, causing the linear sides we see in the image. Meteor Crater in northern Arizona has a similar flat sided shape, in that case a square rather than a hexagon. The Arizona crater impacted into sandstone and limestone that had a right angle fracture system.

It's interesting they reference linear sides for Meteor crater, but squarish rather than hexagonal.

This abstract talks about the effects of shrinkage, didn't Seinfeld have an episode on that?

A new explanation for the hexagonal shape of lunar craters.

The possibility of impacts of large meteorites on the thin crust of the early moon accounting for the formation of the hexagonal lunar craters is discussed. Solidified basalts comprising a lunar crust of thickness 10 to 50 km characteristic of the earliest stage in lunar evolution are shown to have a large-scale hexagonal pillar structure, due to the effects of shrinkage.

originally posted by: 2Faced
Perhaps this will interest you:
www.thunderbolts.info...

Could be of interest to cranks who like crank nonsense.

The People Who Believe Electricity Rules the Universe

EU is completely at odds, however, with everything modern science has determined about the universe.

"At best, the 'electric universe' is a solution in search of a problem; it seeks to explain things we already understand very well through gravity, plasma and nuclear physics, and the like," said astronomer Phil Plait, who runs the blog Bad Astronomy at Slate. "At worst it's sheer crackpottery like homeopathy and astrology, making claims clearly contradicted by the evidence."

"From what I've seen, most EU claims are on the cranky end of [the] scale. That's why most astronomers ignore it: No evidence for it, tons of evidence against it, and no support mathematically or physically."

But your own source says it’s explained by plasma?

Am I missing something or has plasma changed it’s characteristics?
Pretty vague of him with the most EU claims are on the cranky end of the scale....
I would like to see an explanation for the craters on the edge of craters we see everywhere out there. Got one handy?
And how’s the dirty snowball theory that astrophysics likes going for y’all?
The closed mind of physics turns its back on reality and faces the chalk board of mathematics lol
How complicated can you make things? String theory anyone? Please tell me you understand it and can concisely communicate the simplicity.
I’ll be over here with my van de graaf generator.
And my nervous system, and the van allen belt looking at the Aurora’s.
Don’t need a long neck to be a goose. Right mate?
Crank indeed.

Nvm

Gravity makes atoms and sunlight.
Clap clap handicap
a reply to: Dalamax

originally posted by: Dalamax
But your own source says it’s explained by plasma?

Scientists don't deny there's plasma in the universe, heck the sun is made of plasma. That doesn't confirm electric universe theory which claims that the sun is powered by electricity and not nuclear fusion among a multitude of other cranky claims.

Am I missing something or has plasma changed it’s characteristics?

If you believe electric universe claims, you're missing a great deal, it's called science. Electric universe avoids science.

I would like to see an explanation for the craters on the edge of craters we see everywhere out there. Got one handy?

Got an example? I could say what about two impacts maybe from different mass objects, and you could have something else in mind.

And how’s the dirty snowball theory that astrophysics likes going for y’all?

One problem that we are starting to get away from is the tendency to try to compartmentalize our classifications of space objects a bit too discretely, but scientists are starting to realize not every object fits into a neat little classification box and that there is a continuum of things like water content. So it doesn't have to be either a rocky object with a little ice (though it could be) or an icy object with a little rock (though it could be), but it can also be anywhere in-between.

String theory anyone? Please tell me you understand it and can concisely communicate the simplicity.

My signature is a criticism of string theory, but it's not any kind of fundamental part of cosmology and it's highly criticized by many mainstream scientists as unverified so it's kind of a red herring for thunderbolts topics.

Crank indeed.

As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone promoting electric universe is a crank. The followers are sometimes just innocent victims who don't know any better and fall for the scam. Maybe they don't understand how science works, and don't realize that thunderbolts doesn't use science.

For those reasons, in this video, Professor Dave is a little sympathetic to the people who may not be very scientifically literate who fall for the electric universe hoax, but scientifically literate people generally won't fall for it:

Debunking the Electric Universe

There exists an obscure fad called the electric universe, which tends to attract exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect who think they understand physics better than Einstein. Literally. Although not quite as ridiculous as the flat earth, it's still pretty ridiculous, so let's go through the finer points of precisely why that is the case, shall we?

The Dunning Kruger effect can be represented in different ways, but here's one way of looking at it, where the electric universe supporters seem to be at the peak of self-presumed knowledge about the topic, seen on the left side of this graph:


I think that's what Professor Dave means when he says electric universe "tends to attract exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect who think they understand physics better than Einstein. Literally."

a reply to: Dalamax

Gravity makes atoms and sunlight.

Nope. It doesn't make atoms. But it does make large numbers of atoms come together into things called stars. It compresses those atoms so much that atomic fusion begins. Then you get sunlight.

And how’s the dirty snowball theory that astrophysics likes going for y’all?

The general model is holding up quite well, and being refined thanks to more data. Speaking of data, how come the Hayabusa lander didn't get hit with a giant electrical spark when it landed on Ryugu? They were lucky in picking the only non-electric comet?

So atoms get compressed and gravity makes starlight, A visible frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum? But electricity or magnetism isn’t involved? gravity waves?

reply to: Phage

Dunno, may be the region of space the contact occurred in. May be due to the comets origin or approach, may have discharged by visibly displaying two or more tails? Could be any number of things.
Perhaps Hayabusa picked up charge somewhere?

There are no islands in space.

I would direct you to thunderbolts however they charge a fee to access content. How much pressure does it take to squeeze the electromagnetism out of a hydrogen atom? Got the sums? Anyone, anywhere done a practical experiment to prove the theory?
How much fuel does the sun burn for this to work and ffs don’t tell me it takes thousands of years for the energy to get to the surface and into space.
Why is the inside of sunspots cooler then the surface of the sun? Does that happen regularly with nuclear fusions?

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Dalamax
But your own source says it’s explained by plasma?

Scientists don't deny there's plasma in the universe, heck the sun is made of plasma. That doesn't confirm electric universe theory which claims that the sun is powered by electricity and not nuclear fusion among a multitude of other cranky claims.

What is a plasma? What is required to have magnetism? Try and answer the questions in my reply to phage.

Am I missing something or has plasma changed it’s characteristics?

If you believe electric universe claims, you're missing a great deal, it's called science. Electric universe avoids science.

I would like to see an explanation for the craters on the edge of craters we see everywhere out there. Got one handy?

Got an example? I could say what about two impacts maybe from different mass objects, and you could have something else in mind.

And how’s the dirty snowball theory that astrophysics likes going for y’all?

One problem that we are starting to get away from is the tendency to try to compartmentalize our classifications of space objects a bit too discretely, but scientists are starting to realize not every object fits into a neat little classification box and that there is a continuum of things like water content. So it doesn't have to be either a rocky object with a little ice (though it could be) or an icy object with a little rock (though it could be), but it can also be anywhere in-between.

String theory anyone? Please tell me you understand it and can concisely communicate the simplicity.

My signature is a criticism of string theory, but it's not any kind of fundamental part of cosmology and it's highly criticized by many mainstream scientists as unverified so it's kind of a red herring for thunderbolts topics.

Crank indeed.

As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone promoting electric universe is a crank. The followers are sometimes just innocent victims who don't know any better and fall for the scam. Maybe they don't understand how science works, and don't realize that thunderbolts doesn't use science.

For those reasons, in this video, Professor Dave is a little sympathetic to the people who may not be very scientifically literate who fall for the electric universe hoax, but scientifically literate people generally won't fall for it:

Debunking the Electric Universe

There exists an obscure fad called the electric universe, which tends to attract exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect who think they understand physics better than Einstein. Literally. Although not quite as ridiculous as the flat earth, it's still pretty ridiculous, so let's go through the finer points of precisely why that is the case, shall we?

The Dunning Kruger effect can be represented in different ways, but here's one way of looking at it, where the electric universe supporters seem to be at the peak of self-presumed knowledge about the topic, seen on the left side of this graph:

I think that's what Professor Dave means when he says electric universe "tends to attract exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect who think they understand physics better than Einstein. Literally."

I’m not interested in a dunning effect. Try defending with your scientific knowledge.
Tends to and mostly. Words of an evasive fraud.

Check out a couple of movies on YouTube. Old now but still valid. Just have a squiz.

I can’t believe there are people who think gravity is the prime driving force in the universe lol
It can’t even keep an astronauts feet on the floor in a near earth orbit. Let alone hold a star together.

a reply to: Dalamax

youtu.be...

Again apologies for not embedding. I think this video is a little bit more relevant.
It definitely presents the information more concisely then I possibly could.
And it’s free.

It’s kind of off topic. I’ sure there’s another thread that it’s relevant to.

Just because I can’t edit because of the 4 hour limit
And we were talking gravity ...

youtu.be...
a reply to: Dalamax

originally posted by: Dalamax
I’m not interested in a dunning effect. Try defending with your scientific knowledge.

There are hundreds of years of research and experiments documented on the internet, so our scientific knowledge is collective, it's not just my knowledge.

Check out a couple of movies on YouTube. Old now but still valid. Just have a squiz. So you want to demonstrate your scientific knowle

I can’t believe there are people who think gravity is the prime driving force in the universe lol
It can’t even keep an astronauts feet on the floor in a near earth orbit. Let alone hold a star together.

Newton figured out that concept 334 years ago, so you are not even up to where science was 334 years ago.

If someone has a better idea than the current science, the way to improve the science is basically this:
1. Demonstrate that you understand why scientists think what they do.
2. Propose a better method of explaining observations than the current scientific beliefs.
3. Provide evidence to support the proposed improved explanations.

Your gravity point seems to fail on step 1.

Impact Craters vs. Electrical Discharge Craters | Space News

I changed your unlabeled link to an embed of the video. Thank goodness that wasn't Wal Thornhill, he spouts so much demonstrably wrong nonsense it hurts my head to try to listen to his videos. That video is mostly dialog by Barry Setterfield. It may be one of the least cranky EU videos I've seen and almost on topic, since one of his highlights has a hexagonal crater, so I made a screencap of that.

I'll try to paraphrase a few of his points for those who haven't watched the video (which is something you really should be doing yourself if you're going to post videos here on ATS, it's one of the ATS rules).
-He talks about how craters can be formed by volcanism, impacts, or EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining)
-He talks about some of the features one might look at of a crater to try to determine its origin
-He talks about how some EDM craters have been formed in experiments in labs to show what features they can create
-He talks about some craters on the moon and which are formed by the various processes.

So, unlike many electric universe sources, Setterfield seems to understand why scientists think what they do, so that's a good starting point (and something you've failed to demonstrate with your comment about gravity not being strong enough to pull astronauts down).

Now let's look at some specific claims because that's always where "the rubber meets the road".

At time index 9:56, Setterfield says:
"Some small crater chains can be formed by impact but the extensive systems on the moon and Mars rules out any impact origin" and this is the image shown when he says that:


So when Setterfield says that, I'm expecting him to explain how he has established the upper limit of the "small crater chains can be formed by impact", and exactly what theory or process he has used to determine "the extensive systems on the moon and Mars rules out any impact origin", but he provides no justification for that comment.

This exemplifies the problems with these pseudoscientific videos, as opposed to peer reviewed papers. If someone wrote that in a paper, and didn't explain how they came to that conclusion, the peer reviewers should tell the author that they need to explain or justify that assertion somehow. Just saying something like that without any backup doesn't give it any validity. If small crater chains can be formed by impact, why not larger ones? I see no reason to exclude impacts so without further clarification, his claim seems completely unjustified and without reason, and the craters look like they can be impact craters to me. So he's really failed miserably on steps 2 and 3 above, but at least he accomplished step 1 which most EU videos I've seen fail to do, so it's not quite as bad as the rest I've seen.

Now let's look at another claim which actually brings this on-topic for this thread. He shows a formation of multiple craters that he infers can't be from impact and must be from EDM, note the hexagonal shape, so this is somewhat on-topic!



Again there are many problems with Setterfield's claim. In all the examples of electrically formed craters he showed, I didn't see any that looked like this. Maybe he thinks a single impact can't form a crater like that, to which I would say, maybe it wasn't a single impact and maybe it's just coincidence that the larger crater formed first and the smaller crater formed inside that in a subsequent impact. So I don't see anything that rules out an impact explanation, and I don't really see evidence that it was formed by electrical discharge.

Then there's perhaps the biggest problem with the entire video. I would be open to the possibility of some craters possibly being formed by electrical discharge as he suggests if someone can demonstrate a mechanism for that to happen (I posted an example of such a real crater below). So I understand how such craters are formed experimentally in a lab, we can create electrical discharges in the lab. But in the video, Barry Setterfield never discusses any hypothesis, theory, or evidence for how such electrical discharges might create such huge craters on the moon, which is an even bigger problem than his earlier unsupported claims about chain length limits etc.

We see rocks flying around in space and see some of them hit the Earth and obviously even Setterfield admits rock impacts formed many craters on the moon and planets, so there is no reason to doubt the rock impact explanations. But there is lots of reason to doubt the electrical discharge explanations for the large craters, because there is simply no theory or evidence to show mechanisms that can create such large electrical discharges on the moon. Failure to address that point at all in the video makes the entire video a complete failure.

Earth's atmosphere can create electrical discharges and make craters, but they are small compared to some of the large craters on the moon Setterfield is talking about. This crater on Earth made by lightning appears to be about the size of a car:

Lightning strike leaves behind 15-foot crater in Fort Worth parking lot


It's going to take something a lot more powerful than that to make those large craters on the moon, and impacts would do it. I don't see any proposed mechanism for the proposed electrical discharges large enough to create the huge craters on the moon that Setterfield talks about.

originally posted by: Dalamax
So atoms get compressed and gravity makes starlight, A visible frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum? But electricity or magnetism isn’t involved? gravity waves?

No, the gravity is not directly producing sunlight. All the gravity does is create conditions conducive to nuclear fusion. It is this fusion (not gravity) that is the source of the sun's energy.

Here's a very basic explanation: The mass of the stuff that makes up the sun "pushes" toward the sun's center because of gravity. So there is a lot of weight pushing down on the stuff in the core of the Sun (mostly hydrogen). All this pressure due to gravity makes the core of the sun (the inner 20% or so) hot enough and to have a high enough pressure that hydrogen atoms are fused together (in a series of reactions) to make helium atoms. One byproduct of those reactions are photons in the form of gamma radiation

Gamma radiation -- just like visible light radiation -- is part of the electromagnetic (EMR) spectrum and is created by photons. The photons of gamma rays are much more energetic than photons of visible light; gamma ray photons have the highest energy on the EMR spectrum.

However, those photons of gamma radiation start deep inside the sun, and by the time that energy gets to the surface (which could take thousands of years because the photons keep running into stuff along the way) they have lost much of their energy due to those interactions with solar material along the way. Photons get absorbed and re-emitted with each interaction, losing a little bit of energy in the process.

By the time the photons reach the surface, most of them have lost enough energy to no longer be gamma radiation but instead by visible light radiation (among other forms of electromagnetic radiation).

...and ffs don’t tell me it takes thousands of years for the energy to get to the surface and into space.

I mean, I already did above. It can take thousands of years for the photons released by the fusion reaction at the core to make their way through all the stuff between the sun's core and the surface.

Why is the inside of sunspots cooler then the surface of the sun? Does that happen regularly with nuclear fusions?

"Does that happen regularly with nuclear fusion?" is not exactly the right question to ask since there are no fusion reactions happening on the surface where the sunspots are. The fusion happens mostly deep inside the sun at the core, not at the surface. Sunspots are not a direct result or direct product of fusion.

Sunspots are not yet fully understood, but they happen where magnetic fields are stronger than other areas. So there seems to be a correlation between strong magnetic fields and sunspots. One leading explanation is that the magnetic fields are preventing some of the energy created in the core of the sun from getting to those areas of the surface, resulting in those areas being relatively cooler.