Questions about craters..

[folaht]

I'm just a layman, so I'm making wild guesses here.

1)
Are we sure olympus Mons is a volcano?

I'm looking at this:
http://www.solarviews.com/raw/mars/olympus2.jpg

Maybe it's just another impact crater from a comet that went so fast it elevated the ground around it.
I see a hyperbolic curve going towards the caldera, not a parabole.

I also see a crater/caldera half inside the caldera, Is that normal for a volcano?
I got this idea after pouring drops of water on a layer of honey in the kitchen sink creating an effect that looked like olympus mons.

2)
Is this just a recent snowball that went *splat!*?
http://www.biblelife.org/mars-crater-lake.jpg

I notice more snow on the right side of the crater.
I also notice they're both eggshaped.
What is that black rocky stuff in the snow anyway?


3)
Are those starshaped impact craters caused by ice balls or something else that went liquid?
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMo ... modest.jpg
It reminds me of when I turn on the tap in the kitchen sink and look at the stream of water falling on the sink making a similair shape as on mercury.

[nick c]

hello _sluimers_

For another opinion on Olympus Mons, try this:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/ ... s-mons.htm

Nick

[folaht]

Ah, that seems right. I should look around more, being a layman and all.

I noticed that #3 is also in the archives. Seems like Mercury being so close to the sun simply gets hit longer at the same spot.
Instead of a 'drop' of lightning, it gets a whole 'stream'.