Posted on 07/29/2015 11:40:55 AM PDT by BenLurkin
They stretch for long distances across the moon’s surface following the rugged terrain, continuing unbroken over hills and down into craters… and their cause isn’t yet known.
According to a NASA news release, “The origin of the features and their reddish color is currently a mystery to Cassini scientists. Possibilities being studied include ideas that the reddish material is exposed ice with chemical impurities, or the result of outgassing from inside Tethys. The streaks could also be associated with features like fractures that are below the resolution of the available images.”
The images were taken by Cassini during a flyby of the 660-mile-wide (1,062 km) Tethys on April 11, 2015 at a resolution of about 2,300 feet (700 meters) per pixel. They were acquired in visible green, infrared, and ultraviolet light wavelengths and so the composite image reveals colors our eyes can’t directly perceive. The combination of this and the solar illumination needed to image this particular area as the spacecraft passed by are why these features haven’t been seen so well until now.
“The red arcs really popped out when we saw the new images,” said Cassini participating scientist Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. “It’s surprising how extensive these features are.”
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Red Stripe and reggae
make de day go by
so much easier.
My name is Joshua Goodwood, and I’m from the federal Department of Speech, Scatalogical References division.
On behalf of the department, I would like to congratulate you all for getting this for without any references to Uranus.
Any chance they are concentric to some impact crater to the bottom, out of the frame?
A wave-like deposition of material, for some reason?
A friends BF had a dog he named “Skidmark” for that reason.
Iron ore
Stretch marks. Tethys needs to lose weight.
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