Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Let’s look at the moon.
A special exhibit at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, A New Moon Rises, featured some spectacular photographs of the Moon.
According to the display:
“The sunlight at noon minimizes shadows but enhances subtle differences in surface brightness. The dark material is mare basalt, a volcanic rock that formed when lava erupted and flooded large impact basins early in the Moon’s history. The brightest features are ejecta, deposits and bright rays of material thrown from relatively recent impact craters.”
According to the display:
“It is more than 150 kilometers (93 miles) long, 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) wide, and 500 meters (1,640 feet) deep. Sinuous rilles are channels carved by eruptions of very fluid lava.”
According to the display:
“Lava once flooded and filled the mare basins. After it hardened into basalt, tectonic forces broke and buckled the volcanic rock into complex patters of wrinkle ridges that zigzag through the dark mare.”
According to the display:
“This basin has only a fairly thin veneer of lava covering its floor, so its original form is mostly intact. Large parts of the basin were uplifted and pulled apart, causing the 100-kilometer (62-mile) long, 200-meter (660-foot) deep narrow trough, or graben, that cuts across the scene.”
According to the display:
“Lunar swirls are among the Moon’s most beautiful and bizarre features. These bright, sinuous patterns look like they are painted across the flat mare terrain and up and over the tall peaks. Some scientists believe they may result from local magnetic field anomalies that shield the surface from the solar wind striking the lunar soil.”
According to the display:
“Giordano Bruno may be the most spectacular of the young, large impact craters on the Moon. Rock melted by the impact pooled within the sharp-featured crater. Heaps of jagged boulders little the floor, which itself has few craters—evidence that Giordano Bruno is very young. It may have even been formed within the last few thousand years.”
Open Thread
This is an open thread—all topics, including those about Earth and other planets, are welcome.