THE MYSTERY OF THE SAILING STONES.....

Would you ever believe if anyone tells you that stones move automatically without any external force? Absolutely impossible you would say... But believe it or not, it is a reality... This astounding phenomenon happens in the Racetrack Playa of Death Valley, California. Racetrack playa is a dried-up flat lake bed about 3 miles long. As a geological aspect, the rocks in these region move without any human or animal intervention, leaving their long tracks behind!!! They move once in every two or three years and the surprising fact is that No one has ever actually seen the rocks move. Some rocks move straight, some wander and some change their directions abruptly. The mystery behind these magical stones remained as an unsolved puzzle for more than a century. Some say that it is the result of rainstorms, gravitational force and the action of wind. But all these remain unsatisfactory because some rocks weigh more than 700 pounds (nearly 300kgs) and it is impractical for such a rock to be moved only by wind. A more suitable explanation was given by a NASA scientist Ralph Lorenz, who elucidated that the movement of rocks was the result of ice formation around them. During winter, a layer of ice forms around a rock, and the liquid level changes so that the rock gets floated out of the mud. The ice causes virtually no friction on the water and so the stones are able to glide with just a slight breeze... Sometimes facts are much harder to believe than fiction.....