Hi RobNissen.<br /><br />Thank you very much for your thoughts.<br /><br />silylene & myself had a very interesting discussion on this very subject. silylene<br />reckoned that the dust removal process on Mars is much more efficient. Once<br />meteorites have landed on the moon, there are slowly buried under meteoritic dust, & <br />more importantly buried under ejecta & / or lava. Once buried, there is no effective excavation<br />processes, apart form another impact.<br /><br />Yes you are correct also. Mars does sit not far from the inner part of the Asteroid Belt.<br />That fact is very true indeed & I think that the cratering rote on Mars is far greater than<br />the Moon for that very reason. This is one of my reasons that terraforming <br />will not work on Mars long term.<br /><br />True also, Mars is not close to another large gravity sink, that can draw asteroids away.<br /><br />I think all three reasons are active in this. This is turning out to be an interesting thread with<br />very interesting & thoughtful posts in abundance.<br /><br />As I said before, the Moonis a real treasure trove of mysteries.<br /><br />I look forward to deep core samples, & full depth cross sections of the regolith.<br /><br />Think of the history that contains, not only a record of Solar activity, but also the environmental<br />record, as our Solar System orbit's the centre of the Milky Way, once every 225 Million Years.<br /><br />Does the Moons's regolith contain evidence of primeval supernovae, encounters with other stars,<br />passages through nebulae, etc.<br /><br />There is a book to be read there, I'm sure of it.<br /><br />I am probably just gibbering rubbish, but hope not.<br /><br />Below.<br /><br />Shadow of LM Eagle, just after landing, but before the beginning of the surface <br />operations of the first human crewed mission to the Moon. In fact the biggest jump of<br />any landform, since leaving the oceans & going onto land.<br /><br />Apollo 11.<br /><br />Image: AS11-3 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p>
<font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br />
<font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p>
<font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>