Is this an artifact? what do you think? It seems to follow the 'cliff' edge

It appears in the bottom right hand corner of the jpg 4134_h3
here http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lu...er/frame/?4134
and in the bottom left quarter of the tiff - depending which one you want to look at. My example is from the 24Mb tiff.

the thing....


Context:


My interpretation is that I dont know. The only thing on Earth I can think of is a pipeline of some kind? Is there any natural feature that it could be perhaps? Is there a ridge or rille that looks like this?

details from the page above are as follows:

Mission: Lunar Orbiter 4
Spacecraft Position:
Altitude: 2878.49 km
Latitude: 42.80°
Longitude: -25.30°
Principal Point:
Latitude: 46.31°
Longitude: -18.14°
Illumination:
Sun Azimuth: 113.25°
Incident Angle: 68.57°
Emission Angle: 9.90°
Phase Angle: 74.43°
Alpha: -6.06°

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I'm no geologist but it looks like its related to the cooling/soldification of mare flows (similar to what can be found at the A17 landing site, and at many other locations on the moon).
Looking at it in context seems to confirm this.

You can see similar "things" in the enclosed photo, which is the A17 landing site.

It certainly isn't a pipeline.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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This is one of, or at least close to, the Montes Teneriffe group (Teneriffe Mountains) at 48° N, 13° W, in the Mare Imbrium and close to Plato.

The mountain itself is quite big, with a base area of roughly 18 x 30 km. There are lots of big wrinkle ridges in the mare lava in that area, and in fact two or three of them seem to "flow" right up to that particular part of that mountain (See Antonin Rukl's Atlas of the Moon, maps 11 and 3). However, I'm speaking as a complete ignoramus in such matters.

We need a lunar geologist! There might be literature somewhere that talks about those mountains. I can't imagine a feature like that escaping the geologists, provided they noticed it. Then again, it might be so common elsewhere that it's not even mentioned at that particular site.

The feature seems to form a horizontal ledge of fairly uniform thickness against the side of the mountain and to wrap around its contours at fairly a consistent height above the main mare lava, so I wonder if it could have been hot lava washing up against a cooler mountain, with the nearest lava solidifying and the rest receding and finally solidifying at a lower level.

I can imagine liquid chocolate doing the same against ice cream, so I hereby volunteer to do many experiments and plenty of destructive testing for anyone who provides a considerable variety of the necessary materials at no cost.


Edited to add: Beaten to it by Apolloman while writing. Well, some of it!

I just have 2 things to say.

1. I have no idea what that is. I don't know enough to even speculate.
2. This should be used as an example of how to ask a question about a photographic anomaly. The Image is given along with the source, and details that will allow someone that actually knows about such things to find the answer without a lot of preliminary questions.

Very well done.

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OCpaul20 : Check out this website if you want to read actual scientific analysis of various A16 and A15 photos.

http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/

its really a great site !

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If you can manage to get your mouse pointer on the itty-bitty little link
in apolloman's post #2 (one pixel wide, and invisible), you can get the
image by removing the ".jpg" at the end of the URL. Leave the ".jpeg" on.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Jeff Root : ... Sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying, I see the image fine.
Have I loaded it wrongly ?

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Hmm. Maybe just my browser. But the URL ends with ".jpeg.jpg", and
removing that second extension made it work.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

ok, thanks everyone.

About 1/3rd of the way down the top photo there is a shadow and the ('pipeline') white line runs across this, showing shadow on top and bottom.

If it was attached to the edge of the cliff it would not show the shadow on each side. I dont know if pointing out this makes any difference to the interpretation, does it?

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

As already mentioned, it looks like the mare flow simply solidified on the side of the mountain/hill. In this photo, part of the mountain/hill is by chance in shadow.
The reason the “white line” stands out might be due to the fact that it is the “front of the flow” (like wave crests hitting a beach, the crest is higher than what follows – only here the crest has solidified), sun angle or composition of that part of the regolith, or all three.

Its an interesting photo but I see no unexplainable items here. Yet again, I’m not a lunar geologist.

Try to find other photos of the same area, maybe with different lighting conditions it’ll look completely different (i.e Clementine data or others). You'll also see something very similar in the photo I posted earlier on.

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On the right side of the "line" is the shadow of the hill, while on the left side of the "line", we are seeing the shadow of a seperate crater. This makes it "look like" the line crosses the shadow when in reality it doesn't, because there are 2 different shadows.

If we had a larger image of the area it would be more appearent.

Just my .02

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oh, OK. I am just getting to know my way around but I will try and place these kind of queries in the Q & A forum in future. Please move it if you feel that it is not suitable for this forum. Thanks.

I will take a look at the Clementine pictures. Certainly, the other picture posted looked very similar to this example.

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I'd like to second Tog's sentiment that this is exactly the right way to ask a question. Ocpaul20 really did his homework to provide as much background as he could find. Great job!

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

Well, to change an old saying, If the learner has learnt well, he has taken on board what the teacher has taught well.

Has everyone noticed that in that thread, Ocpaul20 changed his mind? How often do we see that here? And as Peter B put it, doing that will "get a lot of respect from most people here." He's clearly streets ahead of the run-of-the-mill hoax-believer we usually see, and deserves our congratulations.

thanks guys. I try to have a bit more open mind than other open-minded people!

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