back to article Huge Indiana Jones rumbling Moon billiard potted in crater

A gigantic rumbling stone ball as big as a three-storey house has thundered across the surface of the moon, smashing through a crater wall before coming to rest deep in the lunar pockmark's interior. LRO imagery of a boulder trail ending in a crater. Credit: LROC In the end the Clangers' lids just weren't strong enough. …

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  1. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Space Pool

    Top shot

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    It's just Tiger Woods...

    ...practising where there are no young ladies to distract him.

  3. Sampler

    three story rolling ball of rock?

    Maybe I'll cancel my application for the moon base team...

  4. Andus McCoatover

    Beat me to it

    Ya B'stard !

    But, if that thing can rattle around a crater on the moon, what if it was a bit off it's trajectory? OK, Earth has an atmosphere, which should've done for most of it, but..

    (Incidentally, did NASA tax it's carbon footprint?)

  5. Alan Esworthy
    Headmaster

    Soundless?

    Y'know, sound _does_ travel through rock. If you'd been in an underground radiation-proof lunar habitat I'm sure you'd have heard this bouncing ball. Even if you'd been on the surface, you'd have heard the thing if you'd pressed your helmet to the ground or a nearby protruding rock.

  6. Michael 82
    Thumb Up

    Top shot

    Them space aliens have been watching Red Dwarf again..

  7. Juillen 1
    Pint

    Clangers extinct?

    Nope, they're just having a game of (oversized) footie, as the picture clearly shows.. As to why they're not in the image.. Didn't you hide when your football broke someone's window?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    how long before...

    they find the cosmocows?

    http://www.cowsgomoo.co.uk/

  9. David Kelly 2

    How will we know?

    If we don't map the moon now, then how will we know when/if God has moved our rocks around? How about space aliens moving our rocks?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Welcome

    Fore!

    I, for one, welcome our new golf-playing overlords.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    NO NO NO!

    That one is off the table and into somebody's pint of beer!

    Beer. Well, um, obviously!

  12. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    Accidental?

    I reckon that the lunar students have noticed the satellite mapping exercise in progress and used the boulder to spell out "Fuck" in the local dash script.....

  13. marksalter
    Thumb Up

    Near misses worth a mention?

    http://twitpic.com/1qv9xz

  14. Rattus Rattus
    Troll

    "They prefer golf to pool or billiards there"

    Here we have a nice illustration of why NASA's been having so many problems. Traditionally, golf is the preferred game of management whereas pool & billiards are more enjoyed by the lower-echelon workers. I think NASA's choice of simile points to an organisation that is top-heavy with too much management and too few workers who actually get stuff done.

    "Golf is a good walk spoiled" - Mark Twain

    1. Stoneshop

      But evidently

      it's simpler to bring a golfclub on a moon mission than a pool/billiards table. And that's why the Lunatics are playing golf now, although they clearly scaled the ball (and probably the clubs) to their size.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

    >is part of a huge and detailed lunar survey now underway.

    They could save a lot of money by waiting for Google Moon to come out closely followed by Google Crater View

    BTW. I wouldn't like to meet whatever it was that pushed the boulder to start it rolling.

  16. LuMan
    Megaphone

    No sound??

    Oh yeah?? Well, I could clearly hear John Williams and the London Philharmonic Orchestra busking away as that monster rolled along the lunar surface!

  17. David Stever
    Boffin

    Did the stone bounce?

    Looking at the trail left, did the damned thing bounce on it's way down the slope? If the thing did a slow roll, I'd expect a steady trail, but this one leaves gaps, indicating to me that this 3 story monster had some momentum behind it. Even if it was rolling on hard ground, it'd leave a trail that we'd expect to be visible to us.

    Mark Salter left a URL to another photo- http://twitpic.com/1qv9xz. In this one, you can see one more trail that seems to bounce, and a second that does leave a constant trail. This moon place does seem interesting to me. Can I sign up for a expedition to the cottage at the end of the road?

    1. marksalter
      Thumb Up

      Bounce - certainly... ... ...

      If you can find and trace the left 'shot' in the image fragment I found then it looks like more of a pool match, with multiple trails and other 'ball' impacts.

      I'm sure they have bounced, dependent on speed and slope of descent, I would imagine.

      The ones I saw are north of the one published in the full image visible here:-

      http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/M122597190LE

      just double click on the middle far left of the full image to see the main item and then go 'north' for some others.

  18. David 45

    RTA

    Could have made a nasty mess if any astronauts and/or lunar rover happened to be in the way.

  19. Daniel Evans

    Gen?

    Wow, there's a word you don't often hear outside of very specific circles.

  20. Stuart Halliday
    Megaphone

    Duh!

    Oh come on Reg, we know it's soundless on the Moon. You didn't really have to tell us.

    You'll be telling us what the difference between RAM and ROM is next!

  21. Stuart Halliday
    WTF?

    How old is it?

    I wonder if they can work out when this boulder moved?

    Could have been one or a millions years ago....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      something insignificant happened 250000 miles away at some point in time

      yeah, lets set up a team to find this out. Them losers off big bang theory would be ideal.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    we need to know

    Why is showing a rock that rolled across the surface more important that showing the many and varied lunar landing sites then?

  23. David McMahon
    Joke

    Now...

    That's what I call pebble dashing!

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