The Secrets of Schröteri Crater

Hi Zorgon,

I have this theory. Bear with me as it's pretty radical in nature.

Say a ridge of Basalt were to be dislodged by a quake or a impact by say a meteor. Then further say the outcropping were on a fairly steep grade. Because of oh, I don't know, gravity, the dislodged boulders due to gravity follow the most direct route down the grade and follow the same general path other than one wandering here and there and slightly deviating from the main course. It would leave a path just like the one in the image. Then take that one step further and when they encounter a pocket, due to gravity they would gather together in a sort of pile.

Now we know these boulders are not regularly shaped as in the enlarged images, as we all know that interpolation when used is extremely lossy and fills in the information not in the original image causing even irregular objects to appear to be smooth sided. Knowing this we of course would not make the error of thinking those are not irregularly shaped boulders of Basalt since it's about 99.99999999999999% certain that they are.

Now being somewhat versed in Geology as we all are, we know that Basalt tends to fracture easily into large sections and it would make perfect sense a large mass would break up into smaller chunks as has perhaps occurred in this case.

Now I'm still looking for something anomalous in that photo? The feature pointed out is pretty unremarkable and easily explained without resorting to wild speculation.

Add all that together and this is a fairly unremarkable photo of a very unremarkable feature on the Moon. Or not.

Remember when Alan Shepard hit that golf ball on the moon? Now we know what pile of rocks it hit when it came down!

reply to post by zorgon
NASA sent something up there that was like a Chevy Dune Buggy years ago, maybe it ran out of gas. That is one of the best looking catches I ever seen, usually they are blurred or hard to make out that is clear. Good work!!!

reply to post by FlyInTheOintment


Great work FlyInTheOintment!

Do you mind if zorgon and I repost this on his site?

Also, can I use those drawings?

I'd like to add one or two of them to the collage-type images I'm making (images with all the info in one place). Your sketches would be good for that.

Zorgon would probably want to ad them to the existing page on the object.

Originally posted by coolottie
NASA sent something up there that was like a Chevy Dune Buggy years ago, maybe it ran out of gas.

Not sure about that but I did find this one on NASA's Apollo archives

Originally posted by zorgon

for years I get grief from skeptics when I colorize the anomalies..
How ironic to see a skeptic attempt the same methods

That's not skepticism, just an alternative explanation.
However, if you can point out, using the colors if necessary,
how the tracks follow the "rover" "up" the hill, please do so.

reply to post by zorgon


I'm calling hoax on that one Wrong year car, otherwise I might buy it

Originally posted by zorgon

Not sure about that but I did find this one on NASA's Apollo archives

Why do they need rear view mirrors on the moon?

Seriously, though that is funny!

Originally posted by zorgon

This aint real.. I dont see an atmosphere.

Ok, I see two people, one the cowboy looking up into the sky, and the other, child like in size to the cowboy, standing beside him, holding his hand. The tracks are their tracks as they walk.

You may have discovered the real man on the moon.

To me the most interesting part of "the anomaly" (that happens to look like a lunar rover) is what appears to be two upright cylinders at the 'back end' of the thing. "back end" in this case is the end at the trail.... see the 2 cylindrical objects...?

check out this mock up of a Chinese Rover...

4 wheels, a pilot seat toward the front of the vehicle, a tower mounted antennae/dish on the rear, reflector on the front....



from this webpage: www.astronautix.com...

reply to post by poet1b


Haha, you are worse than Jose Escamilla.

I see what you mean though.

Some people are saying it looks like a giant mech/robot.

Lunar Boulder Tracks

What are they?
Boulder tracks occur when a boulder rolls on the surface of the Moon. The typical size of the boulder and track is about 7 meters (diameter) and 5 meters respectively. Boulders up to 23 meters and down to 1.3 meters have been identified. Boulder tracks are hypothesized to be the result of lunar seismic activity or thermal cycling.


Why are these boulder tracks useful?
Because it is possible to deduce surface properties (bearing strength, density) without having to land a spacecraft there. This would enable operational planning of landers and rovers.


Limitations of existing data
Although most of the present images showing boulder tracks exist in Lunar Orbiter photographs, less than 1% of the lunar surface was imaged at the high resolution necessary to resolve these tracks. Typically, 1-5m resolution is needed to obtain useful data. High resolution coverage by the upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will enable more tracks to be identified.


Locations/data

[Consolidated list of these tracks, with position on image and estimate of latitude/longitude, size estimates, other derived data.]

The list shown below is for the older Lunar Orbiter imagery. However, recent images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have also shown boulder tracks. Image nacl00000e09.tif (LRO image with boulder tracks) shows a large number of such tracks at a resolution of 1.62 m/pixel. A download of the file will enable contrast enhancement to see >50 tracks near column 1370/row 17491 (image is 5064 by 52224).

It is desired to eventually replace the "Image Center" latitude and longitude with the track latitude and longitude. The supplementary data for the lunar orbiter images provide the frame vertex coordinates, so with the track pixel position, this should be derivable.

No Lunar Orbiter sourcebook has been found correlating the framelet number with high resolution frame code number (i.e. H1, H2 or H3). This data can only be obtained upon obtaining and viewing the high resolution frames.

The "Track Distance From Edge of Image" was originally referenced to 40 cm wide prints. The start point of the measurement is the edge of the Lunar Orbiter film with the framelet numbers. It was never defined exactly where the start point is (i.e. the very edge of the film or the edge of the visible image). Nevertheless, this data is very helpful in locating these "tiny" tracks in the large images.

Two sources of images have been useful for reviewing these tracks. These include the Lunar and Planetary Institute and the USGS Astrogeology Research Program. When reviewing images for features such as tracks, realize that it is preferable to use film and that scans may not have the quality to see some tracks, especially ones with short length.

the-moon.wikispaces.com...

Thing is, if it's a standard kind of rover, with four or more wheels separated and in line with each other, how could it make anything other than the standard kind of rover track, which is two parallel lines? What's this one doing? Rolling on one wheel, then kind of two, then back to one wheel again, and so on?

Gee whiz. Think about it a bit. Look at some actual rover tracks and show me some similar to the ones in this image.

reply to post by Blue Shift


Some people are saying 'rover' some are saying 'lander'.

The tracks of those two things would be different. Right?

reply to post by Exuberant1


Ah calls em as I see em.

Something I should have added in my last post.

Look at the very distinct pattern of the tracks, circle - line - circle - line at a very regular pattern. I would say that is the key to solving this puzzle.

Originally posted by derst1988
Hhmmmm thats a interesting object indeed. Kinda looks like some kinda of left over equipment from the moon landings? even tho i dont think this is the same location as that, right? Also it clearly moves, as is evidenced by the trail left in the ground.

Hmmm.....looks to me like the trail in the ground is a dried up river or where water movement once was. It almost looks like the anomaly in question was pouring out some sort of liquid to create the "trail". The Chinese really need to land on the moon, IMO, as I figure that if anything strange is found up there, the Chinese are more apt to disclose the information. And we know that they have the resources to send up a mission.

reply to post by zorgon
That's great, they need at least on gas station up there, Where is BP when you need them, I think it was the second moon trip they too what they called a 'land rover'.

Originally posted by Exuberant1
Some people are saying 'rover' some are saying 'lander'.
The tracks of those two things would be different. Right?

You lander and rover folks will have to fight that one out amongst yourselves. I'm not sure how a lander or a rover could make such clear tracks in that shape, though.

Originally posted by poet1b
Look at the very distinct pattern of the tracks, circle - line - circle - line at a very regular pattern. I would say that is the key to solving this puzzle.

Also look at the width of the track(s), and how it varies from one end to the other. That's another key.