Scientists baffled by 'bootprint on Mars'


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This elongated, 240-mile-long crater, known as Orcus Patera, is arguably even more enigmatic than the famous "Face on Mars": The face is basically an eroded mesa that just happens to look like a face with the right lighting and focus. But scientists really don't know how Orcus Patera came about.

As explained in today's ESA image release, the term "patera" is usually used to describe deep, complex or irregularly shaped volcanic craters. Orcus Patera is situated between two huge Martian shield volcanoes, Olympus Mons and Elysium Mons, but it's not clear whether volcanic activity is responsible for the bootlike shape. The depression could have started out as a round crater that was subsequently deformed by geological movements. It could have developed from the erosion of separate craters that were lined up next to each other.

"However, the most likely explanation is that it was made by an oblique impact, when a small body struck the surface at a very shallow angle, perhaps less than five degrees from the horizontal," the Mars Express team says.

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It doesn't look anything like a boot print, and the idea of giants walking on Mars (somehow leaving only one single print) is so ridiculous even a child would think it was dumb. I'm not sure why they even brought up the boot thing. It turned what could have been an interesting, intelligent article into something silly.

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It doesn't look anything like a boot print, and the idea of giants walking on Mars (somehow leaving only one single print) is so ridiculous even a child would think it was dumb. I'm not sure why they even brought up the boot thing. It turned what could have been an interesting, intelligent article into something silly.

Maybe he just used mars with one foot to push himself off into outer space? Sort of like you do when your swimming and you push yourself off the wall haha :)

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It doesn't look anything like a boot print, and the idea of giants walking on Mars (somehow leaving only one single print) is so ridiculous even a child would think it was dumb. I'm not sure why they even brought up the boot thing. It turned what could have been an interesting, intelligent article into something silly.

What shape would you call it? I don't see them even suggesting "giant martians". They just took a picture and said it looked similar. When you first look at the picture, you don't even have a relation to the size of it.

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I don't see them even suggesting "giant martians". They just took a picture and said it looked similar. When you first look at the picture, you don't even have a relation to the size of it.

From the article: "It'd take one giant leap of logic to believe that giants once walked the Red Planet."

So yeah they brought up giant martians even if they weren't seriously suggesting it. Why even bring up something so absurd? As for the size, there are many craters in the picture which give a rather good comparison of how large it is.

I know, it was just for fun and I'm taking it too seriously. So many people actually believe stuff like that though and it's annoying.

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From the article: "It'd take one giant leap of logic to believe that giants once walked the Red Planet."

So yeah they brought up giant martians even if they weren't seriously suggesting it. Why even bring up something so absurd? As for the size, there are many craters in the picture which give a rather good comparison of how large it is.

I know, it was just for fun and I'm taking it too seriously. So many people actually believe stuff like that though and it's annoying.

The way they say if doesn't in any way "suggest" giant martians.

Mars grazed by a meteor? Sounds sensible to me. It'd take one giant leap of logic to believe that giants once walked the Red Planet. Almost as big a leap as it'd take to believe that someone left a human-sized bootprint on the Martian surface.

They're saying people might find it hard to believe a meteor would do that also, and be crazy to think that it was giant. I agree it sensationalist, but isn't that what all media tries to do nowadays? I hardly think it's discredits the article or them.

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