Brians238
Skilled Investigator
Well--it's a rolling boulder. Other than that, I'm not sure that there is anything special about the pic.
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July 26, 2015 — Don Ecker, Curt Collins and Goggs Mackay
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
- Start date
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Well--it's a rolling boulder. Other than that, I'm not sure that there is anything special about the pic.
It has rolled UP and out of a crater, and a sizeable one at that. There hasn't been a decent explanation to date as to what force was at play to push this large and heavy boulder anywhere, let alone up a hill?
I don't pretend to have any answers but I do know astronomers have recorded inexplicable events on the Moon for hundreds of years.
I believe this is still a puzzle, especially as the moon is not supposed to be geologically active.
Brians238
Skilled Investigator
Honestly, Goggs, it looks to me as if it rolled down a hill first and then up the other slope. Before any conclusions can be made, I'd like to see a contour map. As to geological activity, the moon certainly has moon quakes that can set boulders moving. In addition, there is very good observational evidence for short-lived luminous phenomena, most likely caused by outgassing ionized by solar radiation.
Creepy Green Light
Paranormal Adept
Is it correct that one of the most likely theories on how our moon formed is that during an interplanetary collision, a chunk of the earth (where the Pacific Ocean is) ripped out and obtained an orbit around us?
Brians238
Skilled Investigator
The Giant Impact Hypothesis (GIH) is still the leading contender when it comes to theories of the moon's formation. In the original version of this theory, the moon was formed from debris ejected after the earth collided with a Mars-sized, world, Theia. However, there is an almost zero chance that rocks from Theia and rocks from Earth had the same isotopic ratios. Apollo astronauts found the rocks from the earth and the moon had identical isotopic ratios, suggesting a more complex origin for the moon. One recent theory suggests multiple collisions and re-collisions with very large objects, but the jury is still very much out...
Creepy Green Light
Paranormal Adept
Right on. And thank you for the information.
moonsurfer2
Paranormal Novice
Sorry Goggs! I should have read the thread to get the name right.
The image you provided is the famous Vitello boulder. There are lots of boulder tracks on the Moon and some on Earth. I always have found them interesting because they are supposedly from millions of years ago. The LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) captured the Vitello boulder very well and shows its source. The spot is at 30.4977 deg South and 37.5319 deg West.
The below link is to the LRO image viewer (ACT) and the image at 1m resolution. (sorry for the long link, but those are the controls for the viewer)
QuickMap
You can move the viewpoint around and measure the distance it travelled from the rock outcrop as 850 m. Using the toolbar in the upper right corner, you can draw a box around it (pick about 2 km square) and get a topographic overlay image. This shows it is downhill from the outcrop to where it stopped. You can then click on the 3D visualizer and move it around in 3D. This 3D data is from the LOLA instrument of LRO which has been bouncing laser shots off the moon surface since LRO got in orbit. They do not interpolate the laser data to create a nice surface.
The image you provided is the famous Vitello boulder. There are lots of boulder tracks on the Moon and some on Earth. I always have found them interesting because they are supposedly from millions of years ago. The LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) captured the Vitello boulder very well and shows its source. The spot is at 30.4977 deg South and 37.5319 deg West.
The below link is to the LRO image viewer (ACT) and the image at 1m resolution. (sorry for the long link, but those are the controls for the viewer)
QuickMap
You can move the viewpoint around and measure the distance it travelled from the rock outcrop as 850 m. Using the toolbar in the upper right corner, you can draw a box around it (pick about 2 km square) and get a topographic overlay image. This shows it is downhill from the outcrop to where it stopped. You can then click on the 3D visualizer and move it around in 3D. This 3D data is from the LOLA instrument of LRO which has been bouncing laser shots off the moon surface since LRO got in orbit. They do not interpolate the laser data to create a nice surface.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Excellent tools. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. Using them it was easy to confirm your analysis:
While using the tool, you can also pan around and see several other smaller rocks that have fallen away leaving tracks of their own. Very interesting
. And BTW welcome to the forum 
!
Last edited:
moonsurfer2
Paranormal Novice
Thanks.
The Blair Cuspids were seen in a Lunar Orbiter II image (61H3) with a sun elevation of 11 degrees.
http://www.astrosurf.com/lunascan/blairN.jpg
It seemed to be interesting to people because the shadow it cast was so long, making people think it was very high. Since this was the only image, it was hard to estimate the height.
QuickMap
The LRO imaged it four times, one at .48 m resolution and one down to 17 degrees sun elevation.
If you use the tool in the upper right corner to select a box around the Cuspids, then left click inside the bounding box you can query>NAC Live Access. This brings up all the LRO images of the spot. Then, you must click on one of the images and click on “add layers”. The selected image will now come up. You can do that with each image in succession to look at the kind of image it is. This is nice for different sun angles. Measuring the shadow for given sun angles, you can estimate the height of the Cuspids. This is easy assuming a flat level surface, a little more tricky if the surface is sloped. The “famous” Cuspids turn out to be not too interesting boulders of “nominal” size (well, ~30 ft IS big but it DOES seem similar to its width and length). So apparently no alien spire after all.
You can see alot of these long shadow casters in LRO images, but usually with low Sun angles, this will happen.
The Blair Cuspids were seen in a Lunar Orbiter II image (61H3) with a sun elevation of 11 degrees.
http://www.astrosurf.com/lunascan/blairN.jpg
It seemed to be interesting to people because the shadow it cast was so long, making people think it was very high. Since this was the only image, it was hard to estimate the height.
QuickMap
The LRO imaged it four times, one at .48 m resolution and one down to 17 degrees sun elevation.
If you use the tool in the upper right corner to select a box around the Cuspids, then left click inside the bounding box you can query>NAC Live Access. This brings up all the LRO images of the spot. Then, you must click on one of the images and click on “add layers”. The selected image will now come up. You can do that with each image in succession to look at the kind of image it is. This is nice for different sun angles. Measuring the shadow for given sun angles, you can estimate the height of the Cuspids. This is easy assuming a flat level surface, a little more tricky if the surface is sloped. The “famous” Cuspids turn out to be not too interesting boulders of “nominal” size (well, ~30 ft IS big but it DOES seem similar to its width and length). So apparently no alien spire after all.
You can see alot of these long shadow casters in LRO images, but usually with low Sun angles, this will happen.