Why isn’t the glass broken?
Happy little accidents (on the carpet)…
I’m not sure where to post this so I guess here is as good a place as any.
A few years ago I was using Google Earth Pro with Mars and the Moon added so you could zoom around looking at things out there. As I was zooming around Mars looking at stuff, I found a very interesting Mars anomaly. To see it yourself, check out these Google Earth Pro coordinates for Mars: 23°41’40.71" N 18°52’47.82" W
At that location is what appears to be a rectangular feature/structure of some kind (first photo below just above the stitch line where low and high res photos meet on the high res side). It really stands out against the surrounding terrain because of its rectangular shape. Zooming in (second photo below) provides for some additional interesting observations:
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It looks like it was once buried (or tucked into a hill side with one side of it partially exposed). The roof on the exposed side appears to be slumping in along the southeastern edge.
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It is quite old based on the pattern of impact craters on the roof.
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There are odd vertical striations in the roof on the southern side, where there also appears to be an opening under the structure.
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There appears to be a vertical wall exposed on the left side where you can see some long vertical linear features there.
All it all, it appeared quite odd to me. I never was sure what to do with this information though. Does it warrant reporting somewhere for further investigation? If so, to who, exactly? I’m curious about what folks here think.
CraigM
3312
The darker colors and flow lines seem to me to indicate this is a volcanic region/ feature. Now I am not a geologist or volcanologist, so take that for what it is.
However you can see square geological shapes in regions with histories of volcanic and tectonic activity on earth. See the Escalante region for examples here. Large areas where the geological activity caused the earth to fracture in nearly straight lines.
Check 37°24’30” N 112°03’42”W
Sure, absolutely. I just thought it was odd that it appears to be hollow as you can see the rectangular portion juts out from the landscape and has an empty void beneath it. I’m not sure what natural process would create something like that but maybe volcanic activity could do it. Also, I didn’t see anything else like it in the area. You’d expect more than one instance here if it was geological.
RichVR
3314
CraigM
3315
Strong, yes, but low energy due to the atmospheric density. Even the strongest winds would barely be a perceptible breeze in comparison.
Mars has high velocity winds but in terms of the force they exert on the landscape, they are actually quite weak because of the very thin atmosphere. The dust there is super fine/small and that’s why the winds are able to create the dust storms Also, if it was a wind carved erosion feature, you’d expect that the impact craters on top of the feature to show heavy weathering/erosion and I don’t see that.
Yeah, but billions of years ago the Mars atmosphere was much thicker and it absolutely could weather stuff then especially given billions of years to do it. Today the atmosphere there is very thin. And again, if it had carved this feature, I don’t think the craters on top if it could have survived. The sheer number of them means that the feature has been there in its present state for a very long time.
CraigM
3320
Maybe, but it also depends on the topographical lift. Maybe the slope is slanted such that it gives shelter to the features up top.
Realistically you would also need a topographical map to make further speculation.
There is several possible reasons, but without more information we simply don’t have, as well as some specialist knowledge, it’s probably impossible to say.
