Boulders are odd on Mars...
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by pocketmoon
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by pocketmoon
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by pocketmoon
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by pocketmoon
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by pocketmoon
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by Portyankina scientist
Nice collection!
Some of images have ice cover which is thicker than boulders height. And some of boulders have unfrosted patches next to them. These might explain some of the weirdness.Anya
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by Markconx in response to pocketmoon's comment.
Has the second picture above been enhance differently from the others and are there more examples? The black blotch has a 'boulder' standing on it; it seems odd to be a shadow, so I am curious; if area below is a discoloured solid surface or a hole?
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by pocketmoon in response to Markconx's comment.
I believe it shows a #fan (as do many of the others). There is a working theory that the boulders may create local "week spots" (due to warming faster than the ground during spring). This increases the probability of a geyser in that location. Anya's update is interesting - the erosion of boulders than become encased in CO2 ice combined with partially exposed surfaces must create some unusual shapes 😃
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by pocketmoon
p.s all images are rotated 180 to get the illumination from the top left. Processing is all RGB level adjustment and a bit of resizing. Some of the images are taken from the high quality .jp2 (jpeg 2000) images on the HiRise website.
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by pocketmoon
More Boulder Oddities 😃
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by JellyMonster in response to pocketmoon's comment.
The second picture (on the right, above) was featured in one of my posts 'Difficult to classify'. I'm disappointed that it has turned out to be an irregularly shaped boulder.
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