Tell-tale Evidence of Bouncing Boulders on Mars

(Before It's News)

A closeup of an impact crater shows distinctive bright lines and spots on the steep slope, indicating bouncing boulders have fallen down the incline. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

What are the types of things that happen on Mars when we’re not looking? Some things we’ll never know, but scientists with the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have seen evidence of bouncing boulders. They haven’t actually captured boulders in the act of rolling and bouncing down the steep slope of an impact crater (but they have captured avalanches while they were happening!)

Instead, they see distinctive bright lines and spots on the side of a crater, and these patterns weren’t they the last time HiRISE imaged this crater 5 years ago (2.6 Mars years ago), in March 2008.
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Read the rest of Tell-tale Evidence of Bouncing Boulders on Mars (133 words)

© nancy for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Post tags: High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

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