Sunday, July 12, 2009

Naming Lunar Landforms and Discovering Their Origins


During our last VLO Mr.Mike came upon the pictured land mass in the lunar dusk. When I was able to spy it hours later in my neck of the woods I decided to call it "Mike's Pile". He promptly responded back with "Richie's Ridge"as being the very top of the pile running SE to NW. What is "Mike's Pile"? Here are some guesses:
  • Maybe an old volcano mound - it is somewhat darker than the surrounding area.
  • The rim of a crater smashed by other impacts?
  • How about lunar material that was thrown out from a great distance away from the impact and creation of a lunar basin?
  • How about a pile of old dirty laundry and rubbish from Mike's teenage years bedroom - the ridge is really 1000s of old sweat socks and worn tennis shoes. This may also qualify as a archeological dig site on the Moon.
Your thoughts and theories are welcome!

2 comments:

Drive-by Astronomy said...

I always wondered what my mother did with all my old stuff. Is that where all those single socks lost in the dryer end up? I guess the moon has more influence over our world than just the tides. Hmmm... could that be the origin of Tide detergent?

Sidewalk Universe said...

I wonder what else is in the pile?