Probe Captures Avalanche on Mars

mdekato writes "MSNBC reports that NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an avalanche on Mars' surface as it happened. Very good still images show what must have been an awesome sight. 'The full image reveals features as small as a desk in a strip of terrain 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) wide and more than 10 times that long, at 84 degrees north latitude. Reddish layers known to be rich in water ice make up the face of a steep slope more than 2,300 feet (700 meters) tall, running the length of the image. Mars' north pole is covered by a cap of ice, and it even snows there. The scientists suspect that more ice than dust probably makes up the material that fell from the upper portion of the scarp.'"

those poor martians

[jollyreaper (513215)]

That's what they get for straying off the marked path.

Why they never made Skiwatch

[jollyreaper (513215)]

Baywatch was a very popular show. It would seem to follow that Skiwatch would also be very popular. You're talking about athletic, fit people doing marvelous adventuresome things. Then I realized the problem: it's hard to show sufficient skin to entice the reptile brain audience when that would only lead to frostbite. A babe in a parka looks like a hunk in a parka looks like an IT nerd in a parka -- nobody could tell the difference. Skiwatch would never succeed. If that's the case, Martian Skiwatch would be

Re:

[2nd Post! (213333)]

Why not? There are plenty of proposals for skintight [wikipedia.org] suits.

The only problem is the helmets, but I'm sure that can be addressed with a 360 degree glass bubble.

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[Digital Vomit (891734)]

"Stupid sexy Flanders!"

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[ZuluZero (1159015)]

Oh, the humanity....er...marsanity.

Re:those poor martians

[Naughty Bob (1004174)]

On the contrary, this is the beginning of a well rehearsed plan... [wikipedia.org]

It's their own fault, true

[commodoresloat (172735)]

But there's no need for a religious interpretation. This is clearly evidence of the effects of Martial Warming. If those silly Martians weren't so attached to their darn SUVs they might have escaped this fate....

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[0m3gaMan (745008)]

"...The full image reveals features as small as a desk ..."

So THAT'S where my desk is buried.

My bad

[elrous0 (869638)]

Sorry about the avalanche. I accidentally started the reactor. It was just so tempting to put my hand in the alien handprint.

As small as a what?

[ricebowl (999467)]

'The full image reveals features as small as a desk in a strip of terrain 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) wide and more than 10 times that long, at 84 degrees north latitude.

I know that we've sent various missions to mars; rovers, probes, environmental impact [wikipedia.org] among other what-have-you; but, and this, I feel is important, when did we send the office furniture?

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[southpolesammy (150094)]

Just part of NASA's offshoring [wikipedia.org] efforts.

Re:As small as a what?

[jaymzter (452402)]

My question is, if there's an avalanche on Mars, does it make any noise? If so, what color?

TheRealQuestion

[rozz (766975)]

also from the article:

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an avalanche on Mars' surface

and also *very* important here: what was Avalanche's little son doing on Mars on a school day?

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[exploder (196936)]

That's about half a Volkswagen, right?

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[jbeaupre (752124)]

NASA, as part of the government, is bureaucratic by nature. Everything must be supervised by some guy behind a desk. It's considered a hardship post, but ever since the first Viking lander, someone has been on Mars to supervise the government work going on. And of course he has to have a desk.

In true bureaucratic style, the supervision must be supervised from even farther away. Thus the camera systems searching Mars. Well, they may find the desk, but they'll still have trouble spotting the dude himself

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[pipatron (966506)]

Here in Sweden we are very used to assemble IKEA desks while skiing, It's not as hard as it looks.

In Martian News Today

[Hoi Polloi (522990)]

"A skier died in an avalanche today while attempting a decent of the dangerous Xplplplt Cliffs near the North Pole. Search and rescue teams found the victim's body which suffered 8 broken limbs, damage to 2 heads, and 1 missing attenna. The victim did not appear to be wearing a teleporter as recommended for skiing in the backcountry."

He would have been OK, except

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

he got hit my a flying desk.

Re:He would have been OK, except

[Gazzonyx (982402)]

I guess Balmer is stronger on Mars...

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[gobbo (567674)]

I guess Balmer is stronger on Mars...

No, desks are lighter.

Links to hi-res images

[jdb2 (800046)]

Here are the links at which all the images taken by the HiRISE instrument can be found from low res to high res raw data :

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/press/20080303a.html/ [nasa.gov]
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007338_2640/ [arizona.edu]


jdb2

Re:Links to hi-res images

[jdb2 (800046)]

I'm replying to myself again as in my clumsiness I hit "Reply" instead of "Reply to this".
Anyway, remove the slashes from the ends of the URLs. My brain was in HTML mode. :P


jdb2

Missed!

[southpolesammy (150094)]

Whew! Well that was close...guess that GRB [slashdot.org] wasn't perfectly aimed at us after all....

A Desk?

[Linker3000 (626634)]

They saw a DESK? WTF!

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[ricebowl (999467)]

They saw a DESK? WTF!

It's not that much of surprise when you think about it. It is, after all, the only logical progression for outsourcing; who's better for IT support? Some random guy or a spaceman? Soon, despite the cool, we'll be relieved that the help line's only over in Bangalore...

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[PingPongBoy (303994)]

They saw a DESK? WTF!


And a spy satellite looking at us would see how much then? Can they look into office buildings? What about a camera in a building 10 blocks away?

The original link, with many more stunning shots

[sighted (851500)]

The original story from NASA [nasa.gov] contains some fascinating additional details, a beautiful picture of the Earth and the Moon taken from Mars orbit, and links to thousands of other Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images that were also released yesterday.

Re:The original link, with many more stunning shot

[AndGodSed (968378)]

That picture of Earth is awesome. I guess we are no longer a "Lonely Planet"... still small in the bigger scheme of things though...

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[sighted (851500)]

It's a question of exposure levels. Go out and take a picture of the full moon. If you have exposed the moon correctly, you won't see any stars around it, either. Its light will have washed them all out. Same deal here.

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[Ihlosi (895663)]

If you check out the image of Earth and our Moon, why do we not see stars? Where did they go?

They went to the same place that they go to during the day. Hey, I don't know where that is, but I don't see any stars when the sun is shining, so they must have gone somewhere, right ?

Well, you know the old saying.....

[Czarf (730417)]

Avalanche is better than none.

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[Doug Neal (195160)]

Avalanche is better than none.

Avalanche is what I do at about 12:30pm. Avalaaanche...

Wait, what?

[katterjohn (726348)]

"It's great to see something so dynamic on Mars. A lot of what we see there hasn't changed for millions of years."

Mars has dust storms quite often, with some covering the entire planet. How would this have not changed anything during millions of years?

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[Aegis Runestone (1248876)]

True, but we've never witnessed an avalanche on Mars before. Now that's pretty cool (no pun intended). This does not, however, necessarily show that the planet is active. As far as plate tectonics on Mars go--it's dead. :/

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[iamlucky13 (795185)]

Well first of all, he obviously said "A lot" hasn't changed, not all. The dust storms don't result in noticable changes to anything from a reasonable distance, certainly not from space. The recent storm that cut into the rovers solar power deposited a layer of dust not even thick enough to be opaque (fortunately), and for any natural objects, it's just dust that was already on them anyways. The dust is ultra-fine grit; nothing that catches the eye by itself.

The polar CO2 icecaps come and go with the seas

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[pipatron (966506)]

The dust is ultra-fine grit

Grits in an avalanche... I guess it's not very hot grits then?

You aren't getting it

[dreamchaser (49529)]

Most of the Martian terrain has apparantly been static for up to millions of years. Dust storms are one thing; we know there is a dynamic atmosphere with seasons and weather there. Capturing an actual avalance, where the surface features are moving and changing, is another matter entirely.

Global Warming or Al-Quida???

[choochb71 (1250928)]

So...did Mars global warming cause this (Democrats) or is it some kind of Al-Quida plan to keep us from Mars (Republicans)? I think it was Ralph Nader.

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[truthful cynic (525883)]

The upper, steepest section, which appears highly fractured due to blocks pulling away from the wall, is the likely source zone for the falls. The precise trigger mechanism is not yet known, although the disappearance of the carbon dioxide frost

Isn't it obvious by the loss of frost? Damn oil companies are ruining Mars already.

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[Ihlosi (895663)]

More like increases in solar energy. Wouldn't that be a hoot, disproving the global warming idiots by using a whole other planet as evidence.

You'd still have to explain why the other seven^H^H^H^H^Hsix planets (and the dozens of moons) in our solar system are unaffected by the assumed increase in solar power output.

New tag: newsatslashdotspeed

[siglercm (6059)]

Ya know, your "news for nerds" source sucks when you heard a story about Mars on the boob tube this morning, only to read about it on /. 10 (or more?) hours later....

Pls tag 'newsatslashdotspeed' -- thx :)

interesting

[wizardforce (1005805)]

speaking of "avalanches" of dust and rock, the image that was thought to indicate present day water movement on mars may actually be the result of one of these dust avalanches instead.

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[Foo2rama (755806)]

I do not think this was a dust avalanche. If you look at the pictures you see the snow line above, and that line looks pretty broken up, that tied with the number of these caught on film makes it look like a fairly common occurrence. So yes this is water movement, but a landslide/avalanche does not leave the same footprint as water based geological weathering. For example water would not leave a talus field.

Why post a third party summation - Go Direct NASA

[icebike (68054)]

It always amazes me that people will post the most slimmed down third party
summation of a detailed article that appears on a non-commercial site:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/mro20080303a.html [nasa.gov]

Re:Why post a third party summation - Go Direct NA

[slig (1233832)]

i concur! thankyou :)

Avalanche!

[writerjosh (862522)]

So, when do Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow, and Robert Forster show up for their 2008 remake of "Avalanche!" the movie? 1978 - imdb [imdb.com]

ASCII Version

[Tablizer (95088)]

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Wow. Just wow.

[Ihlosi (895663)]

(and I'm not talking about a certain MMORPG here).

These must be the most impressive pictures taken by the Mars orbiters so far.

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[ZeroExistenZ (721849)]

These must be the most impressive pictures taken by the Mars orbiters so far.

[shifty eyes] ... that they have made public.

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[wattrlz (1162603)]

You're thinking of the warp scale. The richter scale goes up past ten, it's just that, being a logarithmic scale, getting up to and beyond ten would require energy on a scale not often discussed outside of astronomy or science fiction.