Stickney Crater (APOD 2009 November 7)

[bystander]

If the moderator is a giant space cow, can we post about space cow abductions?

No, we don't want anyone getting ideas.

[Tarree]

That gives me an idea. The paired craters are hoof prints left by cavorting spacecows.

[Bawper]

Phobos was a giant accordian, expanding and squeezing through gravity before and after apogees and perogees (if that's how those words are spelled) creating the cratered lines by venting steam from compressed ice layers. Nothing complicated about those lines at all.

[kovil]

Au contraire,

I suspect Phobos was 'combed' by a giant space comb,

akin to in the film "Spaceballs" when Darth Helmet ordered his men to 'comb the desert' in search for Princess Vespa, Fluke Starbucker, Barf and Lonestar !

(I'm afraid I must defer to Neufer and his amazing talents, to find and post the classic photo of Helmet's men 'combing the desert' !)
This is as close as I got: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lambj/1066571404/
http://media.photobucket.com/image/comb ... 12.jpg?o=1

Bawper, Is this actually a question ? << Would someone please show me how to use this computer's Russian translation composition faculty? >>

[apodman]

Какая разница между аккордеоном и кошкой?

Только стоимость, оба они делают те же виды звуков при сжатии их.

---

Что такое определение джентльмена?

Кто-то, кто знает, как играть на баяне, но не делает.

[kovil]

Подумал я, если вы были риторическими или серьезный.

LOL

Как говорят в Шотландии, когда кто-то играет волынка плохо ", кто-то сжимая кошка снова".

А во Франции, сокращенный вариант определения ноу-хау является: "Если он может продолжить работу, это ноу-хау".

[as a translator of english to russian, google sucks]

[Storm_norm]

if I were to just open my eyes and look at the picture for 10 seconds and close them again. I would swear the orange patches were rust and i was looking at some deformed piece of iron.

[astrolabe]

Hello All,

It got punched right in the kisser by it's brother, Deimos.

[BMAONE23]

I don't think that Phobos or Deimos were once moons of any other larger gaseous planetary bodies. They would have been imparted with significant kinetic energy to have been driven away from the larger gravity wells and would have been carrying too much kinetic energy to have been captured by the comparatively minuscule Martian gravity well.
It is much more likely that both moons were created at the time of the Hellas Basin impact than being captured bodies from other external sources

From WIKI
"The origin of the Martian moons is still controversial. The main hypotheses are that they formed either by capture or by accretion. Because of the similarity to the composition of C- or D-type asteroids, one hypothesis is that the moons may be objects captured into Martian orbit from the asteroid belt, with orbits that have been circularized either by atmospheric drag or tidal forces. Capture also requires dissipation of energy. The current Mars atmosphere is too thin to capture a Phobos-sized object by atmospheric braking. Geoffrey Landis has pointed out that the capture could have occurred if the original body was a binary asteroid that separated due to tidal forces. The main alternative hypothesis is that the moons accreted in the present position. Another hypothesis is that Mars was once surrounded by many Phobos- and Deimos-sized bodies, perhaps ejected into orbit around it by a collision with a large planetesimal."