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Lunar rocks.<br /><br />Surveyor 7.<br /><br />The top one shows cracking. The cracks are about 6 mm or quarter on an inch wide<br />for scale.<br /><br />Cracking in boulders have been images by both Surveoy & Apollo. This is partly due<br />to the day & night temperature extremes.<br /><br />In the early Lunar afternoon, about 8 days after sunrise, the temperature of the<br />surface climbs to 117 Celsius / 390 Kelvin. Just before sunrise, the surface temperature<br />at the equator & mid latitudes drop to about Minus 167 Celsius / 106 Kelvin.<br /><br />That is almost cold enough to liquify the Earth's atmosphere!!!!!!!<br /><br />A day - night difference of about 284 C / K. The moon has one of the most extreme <br />day - night temperature extremes in the solar system.<br /><br />The planet Mercury is even more so, with day temps reaching 428 C / 701 K & dropping <br />to Minus 186 C / 87 K, a difference of 614 C / K. So Mercury may well have some <br />impressive split boulders too.<br /><br />Asteroid 433 Eros also experiences something similar. Its extreme seasons & <br />eccentric solar orbit, shows maximums of around 100 C / 373 K & minimums of around<br />Minus 200 C / 73 K. A range of 300 C / K.<br /><br />The final image taken of the Near / Shoemaker spacecraft during descent<br />to the surface of 433 Eros, shows a nice split boulder, about the size of a large office desk.<br /><br />Below. Lunar Boulders as imaged by Surveyor 7.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <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>