Mar 13, 2012

Elongated craters on the Moon are said to come from “grazing impactors.”

In one of the earliest Pictures of the Day by the late Amy Acheson, the question was asked, how do you make a crater? When astronomers began to observe the Moon centuries ago, the craters there were considered to be the remains of volcanic vents. As telescopes advanced in their resolving power, the structure of lunar craters was found to be anomalous.

Flat floors and central peaks characterize a significant percentage of lunar craters. The majority of those that remain are well-defined, conical holes with clean sides and no evidence of debris surrounding them. Rather, they appear melted with slumping walls in some cases.

In the image at the top of the page, two members of a crater group in Mare Fecunditatis are shown. The conventional explanation for them is that a massive asteroid struck the Moon a glancing blow, scooping out the elongated Messier crater and then bounding back to the surface, where it excavated the Messier A formation before returning to space.

There are no ejecta anywhere near the crater formations, particularly outside of the long axis boundaries, so where is the debris from the impact? The ability of an object to survive the energies involved with a high-velocity strike is also questionable. Especially since the two craters measure 15 X 8 kilometers and 16 X 11 kilometers, respectively.

There are several other elongated craters on the Moon, and others on Mars. They have features in common: flat floors, steep walls, lack of impact ejecta, and a fresh appearance.

The Electric Universe hypothesis offers another perspective on the observations. Several factors come into play that are not available to the consensus theories of geophysics because the lexicon of descriptions available to them does not include electric arcs or traveling subterranean electric discharges.

There are, of course, many possible explanations for craters, but once the electric force is included in the search for those explanations a new way of seeing the world becomes possible. If the conductive surface carries a negative charge, an arc will travel, sometimes eroding elongated craters, like those under discussion.

The electrical interpretation explains the nature of the topography dominating the craters on the Moon. Electromagnetic forces between Birkeland currents constrained to a surface will force them into alignment. Ionic winds can lift material and carry it along in the direction of the current flow, thus explaining the “rays” associated with the Messier craters.

An interesting note is that there is no magnetosphere on the Moon, but some areas possess an “impressed” magnetic field. Since magnetism and electricity are bound together, why is it puzzling for planetary scientists when confronted with anomalous magnetic signatures? Would it be unreasonable to conclude that an electric field impinged on those bodies, leaving behind a remanent magnetic domain? If so, then that is evidence for “electric craters.”

Stephen Smith

Hat tip to Eric Aitchison