Astonishing Martian landscapes, oh, and Saturn too

[Tim McDaniel]

<http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/>:

The Big Picture is a photo blog for the Boston Globe/boston.com,
entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday by Alan
Taylor. Inspired by publications like Life Magazine (of old),
National Geographic, and online experiences like MSNBC.com's
Picture Stories galleries and Brian Storm's MediaStorm, The Big
Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery -
with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well,
just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really
interesting.

<http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/11/martian_landscapes.html>,
pictures from orbit by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), are
among the most astonishing pictures I've ever seen.

Bizarre geological [1] formations like I've never seen, looking like
abstract art or even tattoos, one after another after another after
another, until I'm almost satiated with its bizarreness. A picture of
a tornado from above [2]. An avalanche in progress. And links to
more information.

Compared to that,
<http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/saturn_at_equinox.html> is
merely fascinating.

[1] Obvious synecdoche.

[2] It's not descending from a cloud and it has all the force of an
angry caterpillar: they call it a dust devil. It colors the landscape
on a large scale and it's half a kilometer (1/3 of a mile) high: I
call it a tornado.

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

[Keith F. Lynch]

Tim McDaniel <tm...@panix.com> wrote:
> [2] It's not descending from a cloud and it has all the force of
> an angry caterpillar: they call it a dust devil. It colors the
> landscape on a large scale and it's half a kilometer (1/3 of a mile)
> high: I call it a tornado.

Thanks to the thin atmosphere, when one of those whirlwinds hits one
of the rovers, it doesn't wreck it or even overturn it, it merely
cleans the dust off its solar panels, extending its useful life.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[Alan Woodford]

On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:56:25 +0000 (UTC), tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel)
wrote:

Thanks for the link!

The last of those Mars shots looks scarily like some of the old canal
drawings from Earth :-)

Yes, I know the scale is all wrong but even so...

Alan Woodford
wondering if anyone will get there to have a look in whats left of my
lifetime?
The Greying Lensman!