Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Bill Hartmann (Scientist, textbook/fiction Author, & Painter)

re: Bill Hartmann (Scientist, textbook/fiction Author, & Painter)
JonClarke — (archived)

I find the statements that "Mars is cratered down to sizes of a few meters or less" and "On the best MGS images, we feel we get good crater statistics, for example, down to 11 meters diameter", plus the similar statement "cutoffs due to the present atmosphere may be below D~1 m" from http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC98/pdf/1115.pdf, intriguing. When we look at surfaces images of Mars, be they Viking or Pathfinder, they do not seem to show this sort of cratering distribution with numerous small craters down to 1 m. Craters are remarkably absent from the surface pictures at all three sites, except for some distant examples 10-100's metres in diameter. By contrast surface pictures of the moon - Apolla, Luna and Surveyor - do show a continuum of craters down to this size (and smaller). Comments?

Jon

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