Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterEde
Images look like parts of the comet have been soft/liquified or melted to a point. Nice smooth areas
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looking at the smooth patches in one of the photos i note that most of the smooth patches end in a cliff with many in the same orientation - in the picture's case to the right. to geo - lindon that is indicative of pressure moving from the left to right and building up until the cliff is formed by a piece being plucked out.
in earth-faults, a similar though much smaller feature forms by the relative movement of two slabs or rock and is called 'slickensides'. they indicate the direction of the most recent movement.
IF (and that's a BIG IF!!) the 67P features are slickensides they may have formed by pressure building up on a now removed layer of material that slid left to right over the layer we now see before being plucked away with the loosened material that was to the right of the now cliff.
if they are not slickensides n only resemble 'em then i dunno . . . but probably the stellar winds formed the features in a similar way with out the assistance of an over layer.
the features do seem to indicate a direction though. is that what we would expect when 67P has a 12.7 hour rotation period? is that fast enough so that it does not present a constant aspect to the pressure long enough to form fairly consistently rather than more randomly orientated features
maybe the features preserve the direction of pressure in the last few hours before the pressure was sufficiently relieved at the end if its last perihelion.
oh what fun
