Physical Therapy Miserable Malalignment

The scars of impacts on Mars

Photos: High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express. (Credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin (G. Neukum))

The great Huygens Basin (map below), is about 450 km in diameter and is located in the southern highlands of Mars crater. In this area there are many impact scars, but none perhaps more intriguing is the "elongated craters'.

One of these craters can be seen in opening up new image captured on 4 August 2010, covers an area of \u200b\u200b133 x 53 km at 21 ° S / 55 ° E and smaller items are distinguishable from the camera of about 15 m in diameter. This elongated unnamed crater is located just south of the basin much larger Huygens. E 'of about 78 km in length and less than 10 km wide at one end e circa 25 km nell'altra e raggiunge una profondità di 2 km.

I crateri da impatto sono generalmente tondi, perché i priettili modellano il terreno a causa dell'onda d'urto verso l'esterno. L'indizio viene dalla coltre circostante di materiale, gettato fuori dopo l'impatto iniziale. Questo materiale esplulso ha la forma di ali di una farfalla, con due lobi distinti e suggerisce che forse i proiettili a schiantarsi erano almeno due, forse parti di uno stesso oggetto frantumatosi in precedenza.
Nella stesso cratere, ci sono tre aree più profonde che potrebbero essere la prova dell'impatto di più di due proiettili. Inoltre, un secondo cratere allungato si trova a nord/nord-ovest. Lo si può vedere nell'immagine contestuale wider and in line with what you see in the opening article, reinforcing the idea that these structures were the result of a bullet train.

In the early 1980s, scientists have proposed that the elongated impact craters could be formed by chains of orbital debris impact with the gravitational pull of the time decay of their orbits, with angles so shallow and so the digging craters stretched .

The blanket of material expelled, contains many small craters, indicating that the original has been formed in a relatively earlier and later became a target of other impacts. In addition, There are several small channels on the deck, suggesting that different material has been cast including perhaps even the water and traced the tracks of sliding.

Under the eastern edge of the crater there are two well-trained and relatively deep craters. They drilled through the ejecta blanket, and so must have appeared after the formation of large crater. Despite their size of 4 km and 5 km, these craters show no indication of the presence of water.

To the north is another crater that should be earlier, because the scars are above the blanket of ejected material. In addition, several landslides have changed the steep rim of the crater. This can be seen more clearly on the two smaller craters edge, which have been preserved only partially.
But there will probably be the possibility of forming more elongated craters in the future: the Martian moon Phobos will impact on the planet in a few tens of millions of years and probably will create new craters anomalous over the entire surface.

Source

By Arthur McPaul