Rosetta Spacecraft Spots 'Pyramid' Boulder on Comet

[Dryson]

Rosetta Spacecraft Spots 'Pyramid' Boulder on Comet

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has sent home several spectacular images that show a large pyramid-shaped boulder studding the surface of its target comet.
Rosetta mission team members have named the 82-foot-tall (25 meters) boulder on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko "Cheops," after the largest pyramid in Egypt's famous Giza complex. The rock is much smaller than its namesake, however, which rises 456 feet (139 m) into the Egyptian sky.

http://www.space.com/27420-rosetta-spacecraft-comet-boulder-photos.html

I don't think that the triangular boulder is natural as there is not any wind on the comet to shape it in such a manner.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yes, and wind is the only way to shape rock formations which is why all rocky surfaces in space that do not have atmospheres are perfectly smooth.

So clearly this meaningless rock amongst a belt of billions of the things in a solar system with four rocky planets in it, one of which (maybe two) capable of harboring life (to speak nothing of the rocky/solid moons in the system some of which may harbor life) was visited by alien Myans or Egyptians so they could make these sorta pyramidal formations.

That or it's a rock that happens to have a meaningful shape when observed the right way.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I don't think that the triangular boulder is natural as there is not any wind on the comet to shape it in such a manner.

You're acting like it's a perfect pyramid when in reality it's just a rock of a slightly similar shape.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I don't think that the triangular boulder is natural as there is not any wind on the comet to shape it in such a manner.

What origin do you suggest it has?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

My time machine works! It's the nineties again, when thousands of people became convinced a couple of rock formations casting a peculiar shadow were a pyramid an a face on the surface of Mars!

Though Zak McCracken was a damn good game!

 

[Melakon]

It's obviously a sign left by the 13th tribe of Kobol.

 

[Silvercrest]

What origin do you suggest it has?

Oh, you do not want to go there.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think that the triangular boulder is natural as there is not any wind on the comet to shape it in such a manner.

Actually there's plenty of wind on comets. They're objects composed of frozen gases that vaporize and blow outward from inside the comet when it's heated by the Sun. And what do you call an envelope of gases around an astronomical object? An atmosphere. An atmosphere that's constantly moving as it outgasses and escapes into space. So yeah, it's tenuous, but there's wind.

Anyway, if you call that rock triangular, I suggest you get your eyes checked. It's clearly a pretty random agglomeration of smaller bits in a pretty random shape. It's far rougher than the surface it's resting on, and thus far less shaped by erosion -- more likely made of harder material, I'd guess a chunk of rock originally embedded in ice and now brought to the surface as the ice sublimated away. And since the shadow is evidently stretched out by the angle of the sunlight, the actual rock itself is bound to be flatter than the shape of the shadow. It's just a rock.

 

[HIjol]

What origin do you suggest it has?

Oh, you do not want to go there.

Too Late!

Wait, I saw this movie! Sinese, Cheadle, "Trip to Mars"?... "Mission to Mars"? there were hydroponcis...some shit...jeez,. I can't...

 

[Trekker4747]

What origin do you suggest it has?

Oh, you do not want to go there.

Too Late!

Wait, I saw this movie! Sinese, Cheadle, "Trip to Mars"?... "Mission to Mars"? there were hydroponcis...some shit...jeez,. I can't...

Mission to Mars where Gary Sinise goes to live with aliens who've been hiding out on Mars for eons, their space-ship buried under dirt/sand/soil/debris of the "face on Mars" formation. And now the terrible memories of that terrible movie come flooding back to me.

What gets me is that a trip to Mars has a lot of potential in it as a dramatic story, we're talking about a trip that'd take the better part of two years, survival on a planet that's not entirely hospitable to human life for the better part of two years and then a RETURN trip that'd take the better part of two years.

Granted, the movie wouldn't need to focus on the return trip and I'm not saying that such a story would need to get into the mundane details of them doing thermal rolls in the space craft, or collecting rock and soil samples on the planet, but the length of time for the voyage, the risks and hostile environments that need to be managed. There's a lot of potential in a good, solid, story about a manned-trip to Mars that doesn't need to involve ancient aliens or the planet suddenly having a breathable atmosphere because of bacterial life in the ground or whatever.

 

[Metryq]

Actually there's plenty of wind on comets. They're objects composed of frozen gases that vaporize and blow outward from inside the comet when it's heated by the Sun...I'd guess a chunk of rock originally embedded in ice and now brought to the surface as the ice sublimated away.

And "comets seeded the primordial Earth's oceans," right? All the press releases say so. We've visited half a dozen comets close up, and none of them have upheld Whipple's "dirty snowball" hypothesis. In fact these hot, dry rocks are as dark as asphalt and display sharp, chiseled surfaces that look nothing like melting ice. Oh, I forgot, the volatiles that have not been found on the surface are actually lurking beneath the rocky surface. Either that, or we're bucking tremendous odds by running into comets that are all exceptions to the norm.

There are alternative hypotheses that fit all the facts. Even if one is not swayed by the new model, one should be aware of the flaws in establishment mantra.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Only the shadow is pyramid shaped. Depending on the angle of the light source, the shadow could be any shape.

 

[sojourner]

And "comets seeded the primordial Earth's oceans," right? All the press releases say so. We've visited half a dozen comets close up, and none of them have upheld Whipple's "dirty snowball" hypothesis. In fact these hot, dry rocks are as dark as asphalt and display sharp, chiseled surfaces that look nothing like melting ice. Oh, I forgot, the volatiles that have not been found on the surface are actually lurking beneath the rocky surface. Either that, or we're bucking tremendous odds by running into comets that are all exceptions to the norm.

You do understand that any ice on the surface of the comet would have long ago sublimated away? The comets we've encountered are the norm.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Only the shadow is pyramid shaped. Depending on the angle of the light source, the shadow could be any shape.

Not only that but, a shadow cannot possibly be pyramid-shaped, because it is a two-dimensional surface projection of... Unless...

Holy shit... There is a pyramid-shaped shadow on the comet? That could only mean there is a fourth dimension!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Only the shadow is pyramid shaped. Depending on the angle of the light source, the shadow could be any shape.

Not only that but, a shadow cannot possibly be pyramid-shaped, because it is a two-dimensional surface projection of... Unless...

Holy shit... There is a pyramid-shaped shadow on the comet? That could only mean there is a fourth dimension!

If it was the Fifth Dimension, we could hear Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.

 

[JES]

Doesn't look very impressive to me. It looks nothing like the pyramids of Mars, or anything like that. Just a rough boulder. I've love for it to be an artifact to be explored, or for NASA conspiracy theorists to speculate, but nope, not this time!

Now the face and pyramid of Mars of the Cydonia region, now that still captures my imagination! So yeah, lets get back to that, because there is most certainly nothing to see here.

Besides, what kind of crazy schmuck would want to build a structure on a comet, which is probably going to get itself pulverized sooner or later, huh?!

 

[sojourner]

There's nothing to see in the Cydonia region of Mars either, except natural formations.

 

[Metryq]

You do understand that any ice on the surface of the comet would have long ago sublimated away? The comets we've encountered are the norm.

Ah, I see. We've found no ice, but there was ice because theory demands it. Did you bother to watch the documentary at all? Or did you simply find it easier to parrot the officially approved story?

Perhaps you'd be kind enough to explain the many comets seen to be active in the outer Solar system:

Hale-Bopp, a naked-eye comet that hung for weeks like an exclamation mark in the 1997 sky, was still active four years after it left the inner solar system. When it was farther from the Sun than the orbit of Uranus it was almost two million kilometers in diameter. It displayed a coma, a dust tail, and an ion tail more than a million kilometers long. Solar radiation will not melt ice at that distance, otherwise the moons of Saturn and Jupiter would be bone dry, so astronomers were unable to explain it.

Or perhaps you could explain the findings of the Stardust mission which found crystalline materials (pigeonite, olivine) requiring intense heat, and—paradoxically—compounds that form only in the presence of liquid water. In short, comets do not appear to be fossils from the earliest days of the Solar system, clumps of material that stuck together under weak gravity. Instead, comets appear to be debris from a planetary surface.

Again, ignore any alternative model because I know how frightening that can be. Just evaluate the data which conflicts with the "dirty snowball" idea, and perhaps explain it.

 

[Stoo]

I didn't bother watching a 90 minute documentary myself. If comets are hot dry rocks, what's their coma\tail made of? And why do you think Hale-bopp is still active?

 

[Gov Kodos]

Only the shadow is pyramid shaped. Depending on the angle of the light source, the shadow could be any shape.

Not only that but, a shadow cannot possibly be pyramid-shaped, because it is a two-dimensional surface projection of... Unless...

Holy shit... There is a pyramid-shaped shadow on the comet? That could only mean there is a fourth dimension!

If it was the Fifth Dimension, we could hear Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.

Sung by Mathilda May.

I didn't bother watching a 90 minute documentary myself. If comets are hot dry rocks, what's their coma\tail made of? And why do you think Hale-bopp is still active?

1) Carbon Monoxide, mostly. As for the rest of the ice, ice doesn't have to be water ice, all sorts of things freeze in the depths of space.
2) Mathilda May and her space ship need the thing.