Questions tagged [geology]
Questions regarding surface features of celestial bodies.
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Why are there mountains/mounds in the centre of craters on the lunar surface?
From clear images of moon's surface we can see many of the craters have small mountains/mounds (or montes) in the centre. So, what is the mechanism behind the formation of these mountains and which ...
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Do other planets and moons share Earth’s mineral diversity?
Earth is full of different minerals. Each patch of land, between plate tectonics and other forces, finds itself brimming with a variety of interesting and more importantly, different, minerals.
Does ...
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Do scientist who study martian geology typically use the term areology?
In the book Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, I came across the word "areology". Is this word often used in scientific publications, or is it a term limited to the scope of science-fiction, ...
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Would the lunar analogue of geothermal energy be practical on a lunar base?
Given sufficient liquid in the form of water or other suitable medium, would the use of the lunar analogue of geothermal energy be practical or feasible for powering a lunar colony?
Wikipedia (...
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What are the dark areas on the moon?
The Moon has a large number of dark spots, as can be seen on the photo below (Wikipedia), that differ significantly from the lighter areas. The dark areas often seem to be roundish, but not ...
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Why is Curiosity not heading for Peace Vallis?
For over 5 years Curiosity has been successfully searching for many signs that water was once present at Gale crater. Its geology is notable for containing both clays and sulfate minerals that may ...
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What causes moonquakes?
Despite having very little geological activity, without any active tectonic plates, the moon is prone to shaking shifts.
As far as I know, moonquakes can be caused by the Sun, thermal quakes, or by ...
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What concentration of oxygen in a planetary atmosphere would be indicative of life?
Astronomical spectroscopy can be used to determine the chemical composition of distant bodies. In the related question Can we detect atmosphere on exoplanets? we learned that, even now, we are ...
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Rock arches on the moon?
The large rock in the centre right position (cut off by the image's right edge) of this photo seems to include the left part of a (small) natural arch:
Is this indeed a rock arch? Are complete ...
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How tectonically active is Mercury?
Both this article and this paper say that Mercury's tectonic activity is mostly in the past, but the first article does have this to say:
After the volcanic activity subsided, the planet has been ...
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Constant lunar sub-surface temperature
On Earth we have the idea of constant ground temperature. Builders in North America think of it as 55 degrees at 5 feet down (not quite true, but close enough). At the surface it varies with the day. ...
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Is there dirt or its structural equivalent on Mars?
One potential solution to an initial permanent colony on Mars would be a series of modules with dirt floors and walls and slightly convex, transparent roofs. Assuming the interior temperature was ...
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Are there microclimates with better weather conditions on Mars?
On Earth, a microclimate mostly refers to an area which differs from the surrounding areas in temperature or humidity.
And what about Mars ?
Are there places with atmospheric conditions that are less ...
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What likely is the chemical composition of the thin piece of material on the surface of Mars on the image below?
Note: The MAHLI images below were acquired when both the two groups of white light LEDs and the ultraviolet LEDs were off.
When looking for the damage on the wheels of Curiosity on the raw images i ...
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What useful elements are NOT to be found on Mars?
There are a series of questions on this site which are generally "Is there X on Mars?" "Are there sufficient Y to create Z on Mars?" And the answers are generally YES for the most part.
What is there ...
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Features on border of a crater & ravine on Mars
This image of the Sirenum Fossae Trough - MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-248 of Mars shows spots on the northern lip of the crater that draw my attention.
See the Mars Global Surveyor - Mars Orbiter Camera ...
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Is there any reason Cyanobacteria or Lichens can't survive on Mars?
According to this article "Mars atmosphere is supersaturated with water" & according to answers to this physics stack exchange question conditions do exist on the surface of Mars where fluid water ...
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Is there really a frozen lake near the equator on Mars?
Figure 1. Views of plate-like terrain on Mars, and pack-ice on Earth. From the paper linked below.
a, Part of an HRSC image of Mars from orbit 32, with a resolution of 13.7 m per pixel, centred at ...
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Significance of Venus surface photos
Out of curiosity, I started looking for photos of Venus surface taken by various Russian probes. There is a nice collection here: http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm
Not being a geologist, I ...
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Where on Mars are there other craters or collapse features with very high depth/diameter ratio?
Figure 1 of this article about craters and collapse features on Mars with high depth/diameter ratios shows that ratios higher than 0.2 are exceptional.
This presentation of the Program of the Second ...
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Why is the northeastern region of Syrtis Major Planum a selected landing site for the Mars 2020 mission?
Image below:
One of the 3 selected landing sites, on the left side of Jezero crater, which is also selected !
A workshop for the Mars 2020 Rover mission was held in February 2017 that selected 3 ...
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How can one find the cratering rate for different parts of the Solar System
I've heard that counting impact craters is a great way to figure out how old the surface of a planet is, but I've never heard what the actual rates are. Do they vary from planet to planet? Anything ...
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What caused Cydonia mesas, such as "The Face on Mars", to be created?
The Cydonia region of Mars is littered with mesas, which are an unusual geographic feature on Mars. A sample of a few of these, including the commonly known as "The Face on Mars", is shown below. How ...
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What type of rock or soil on Mars will give Nostoc Commune cyanobacteria the best chance to survive there?
Photo taken by YAMAMAYA
Cyanobacteria are a group of photosynthetic bacteria, who use the energy of light to synthesize organic compounds from carbon dioxide, and producing oxygen this way.
Nostoc ...
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What is this surface feature near Shackleton crater classified as?
I was looking at a map of the lunar South Pole and the surrounding area when I noticed the rectangular/elongated feature just to the left and below centerline of Shackleton crater in the below image:
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Are quasicrystals common on the Moon and Mars?
According to this 594, 7861 Nature article called First nuclear detonation created ‘impossible’ quasicrystals, the quasicrystals are readily created when where is an explosion or a meteorite impact ...
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What's the deepest a trench could theoretically be dug on Mars?
Given the physical characteristics of Mars (the crust's thickness, its composition, gravity, etc.) how deep a trench (that could be expected to continue to exist indefinitely, or rather, for periods ...
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How did Spirit and Opportunity identify ferric sulfate and jarosite on Mars?
In the short BBC video Spain's otherworldly red river, Ricardo Amils, a researcher in Spain's Astrobiology Center says the following (amateur transcription):
Río Tinto is a peculiar place in our ...
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Should we expect the surface rocks of Venus to be oxide poor?
My thinking is that in an atmosphere rich in hot sulfuric acid they couldn't stand a chance. Although I am unsure of what exactly would be going on chemically at the interface between the venerean ...
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Difference between "mafic floor" and "olivine-bearing floor" in Jezero crater? (Perseverance landing site)
Figure 3: Main geologic units within Jezero crater shown on a basemap constructed from images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance ...
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Any additional information required for colonising these rocky solar system bodies?
I am doing some research into the nearby rocky bodies Mars, Venus and the Moon with reference to human colonisation.
Are there any specific pieces of information that would be useful to know about ...
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How could InSight's seismometers be intentionally and meaningfully "pinged"?
I had a friend whose summer job, a long long time ago, was to travel around an unsuspecting rural area, lay a heavy steel plate on the ground, and whack the plate with a sledge hammer. Apparently he ...
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Where exactly are those eight steep slopes on Mars revealing structures of buried ice?
Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/USGS
The image above is from Phys.org's article Steep slopes on Mars reveal structure of buried ice that I came upon by the link in a comment from @Mark Adler after his ...
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Were launchpads at KSC built with pilings or footings?
Considering the importance of keeping a launchpad level, were pads 39A or 39B at Kennedy Space Center built with pilings or footings down to the bedrock?
As seen in the quotes below, I have found ...
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Where on Mars did the largest river once flow?
It is generally accepted that once there was running water on the surface of Mars.
Can it be determined from remote sensing data from space where the biggest, largest and longest ones were?
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White crack infill on the surface of Mars in the Gale Crater
The following picture, taken by the Curiosity rover in the Gale Crater on Mars in 2016 shows what appears to be a cracked Martian surface, with the Egg Rock nickel-iron meteorite. Ignoring the ...
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Why is Curiosity remaining on the Vera Rubin Ridge for so long?
Have the MSL mission team members become overwhelmed by the iron-rich rocks on the ridge ?
Image from: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiosity-mission-updates/?mu=sol-2018-rock-...
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Depth to diameter ratio of impact craters
Two questions on this site concern themselves with the depth to diameter ratios of craters:
Catalog of lunar crater depths and diameters
Where on Mars are there possible other collapse features with ...
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Have the rovers on Mars encountered anything unrecognizable to geologists?
We have quite a few rovers trundling around Mars. Just from reading the popular news, I get the impression that everything encountered so far (minerals, rocks, strata, formations, structures, etc.) ...
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Which were the more than 60 (!) candidate locations for the Mars 2020 rover?
Four years ago I asked for the 21 potential landing sites for the Mars 2020 mission in this question, but now I've learned that there were more than 60 candidate locations !
From NASA Announces ...
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What could be the cause of the extraordinary high Fe counts from the PIXL instrument onboard the Perseverance rover?
In this answer a table is showed with all the elements that were detected by the PIXL instrument on 2 occasions, namely sol 140 and sol 167.
As could be expected, X-ray counts were high for Si (...
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Which potential landing sites were identified at the MSL Landing Site workshops?
In the Wikipedia article Timeline of Mars Science Laboratory it is mentioned that at the first MSL Landing Site workshop, 33 potential landing sites were identified, and that by the second workshop in ...
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What is the white stuff emerging from a hole on the surface of Mars?
Edit: It can almost certainly be excluded that the white spot was caused by Curiosity's ChemCam's laser, because it doesn't make sense that the laser was used at that time without taking images with ...
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Why was Apollo 17 considered to have "achieved a very successful geological survey"?
They listed out all the apollo missions, with blurbs about what the outcomes were, for example here's 15, 16 and 17:
15 - Landed on moon and deployed lunar rover.
16 - Landed on moon and deployed ...
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What kinds of instruments do you need to detect whether liquid water/ice is on a planet?
Somewhat of a two-part question. Firstly I'm interested to know if it is expected that a planet/asteroid has water/ice on it, what kinds of scientific instruments you need to identify the presence and ...
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Does Mars have badlands?
This excellent answer addresses the amazing 3D structures shown in the image below:
The terrain examples show some striking similarities to what is referred to in the United States as "Badlands" - ...
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Eyes on Mars; are these craters mentioned or described in any paper or (scientific) article?
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
HiRISE ESP_025334_2035
For a closer view, click on the image, and then, click again.
This pair of similar craters is located in the northern part of Oyama crater,...
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Which scientific articles together give proof of all the chemical elements found on Mars?
Wikipedia about the elemental composition of Mars:
Based on these data sources, scientists think that the most abundant chemical elements in the Martian crust, besides silicon and oxygen, are iron, ...
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How does one get the exact location of imaged features on the surface of Mars?
The image above is from the article "Evidence from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera for a frozen sea close to Mars' equator".
It shows 3 flooded or partially flooded craters 4.8, 2.3 ...
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Earliest gravitational map of a planet/moon?
When was the first gravitational map of a planet or moon made by measurements from space?
I'm guessing it was a map of Earth, since that's the closest planet to us,[citation needed] but for all I've ...
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