Rover captures light source on Mars!!

reply to post by Phage


Yeah, sure i did *rolling eyes*. Has anyone else?

Maybe you didn't read correctly, the film itself would be exposed to cosmic rays similar to light exposure. Would this not be like a litmus paper and foul the entire roll?

ipfreely32
reply to post by Phage

 

Yeah, sure i did *rolling eyes*. Has anyone else?

Maybe you didn't read correctly, the film itself would be exposed to cosmic rays similar to light exposure. Would this not be like a litmus paper and foul the entire roll?

well that would depend entirely on what it passed through and what it had to try to pass through to get to the film.But id say odds are good it wouldnt destroy the whole roll only a picture.

reply to post by dragonridr


It would more than likely have no immediately noticeable affect on a standard roll of film. A cosmic "ray" is an atomic particle that carries a charge. When it interacts with a CCD (charge-coupled device), there is a reaction due to the electrical nature of the particle and the CCD.

Film is not electrically charged.

This is not to ignore the long term effects cosmic radiation can have on film. Over a significant time span, film can become fogged from cosmic radiation.

reply to post by ipfreely32

Maybe you didn't read correctly, the film itself would be exposed to cosmic rays similar to light exposure. Would this not be like a litmus paper and foul the entire roll?

Maybe you missed where I said that with long term exposure the film may get "fogged." This would happen as a great number of microscopic hits occur over time.

Too much may be made of this showing up on only one of the mast cams. If the cameras themselves were the same that would hold more weight.

However one is a high resolution camera (specifically to be able to study terain further away) where as the other one is mid level resolution. If the phenomenon is far away it may simply be beyond yhe capabilities of the second camera to catch it.

Of course it still could be a cosmic ray but I am leaning towards a geyser of some sort. Not sure what a geyser being there would mean for mars.

Nice thread, wish I had time to read it all.

Its impossible. The air pressure is too low for a geyser to exist

inquisitive1977
Too much may be made of this showing up on only one of the mast cams. If the cameras themselves were the same that would hold more weight.

However one is a high resolution camera (specifically to be able to study terain further away) where as the other one is mid level resolution. If the phenomenon is far away it may simply be beyond yhe capabilities of the second camera to catch it.

Of course it still could be a cosmic ray but I am leaning towards a geyser of some sort. Not sure what a geyser being there would mean for mars.

Nice thread, wish I had time to read it all.

edit on 15-4-2014 by inquisitive1977 because: (no reason given)

edit on 15-4-2014 by inquisitive1977 because: spelling

reply to post by inquisitive1977

However one is a high resolution camera (specifically to be able to study terain further away) where as the other one is mid level resolution. If the phenomenon is far away it may simply be beyond yhe capabilities of the second camera to catch it.

You are talking about the Mastcam pair. These images are from a Navcam pair.

reply to post by Phage


Thank you, I apparently misunderstood what cameras took the photos.

After reading up on the navcam then yes I would expect basically the same image in both. It really does appear to be something shooting from the surface either from impact or some internal pressure.

Unfortunately now knowing the cameras I believe cosmic ray or some camera glitch might be the best explanation.

Great photo anf thread though.

Honestly, to me this does not look like a cosmic ray hit on the CCD. High-energy particles hitting the image sensor of a camera or a telescope produces a sharp streak (needle-like) and occurs at an oblique angle. Now, if we analize the "light" appearing on the picture of the right Navcam (I know it's only showing on the right one and not the left one of the pair, but still...), it's showing at an angle probably very close to 90 degree relative to the horizon, and goes from sharp at the bottom to diffuse at the top. Take a look at the picture analysis below...

I don't know whether you discussed this option, but also look a lot like a geyser..

reply to post by deccal

It does, doesn't it? It's low on the list as Mars is thought to be *almost* geologically dead. Without such activity, there shouldn't be much chance of the processes occurring that cause geysers. No heat, no pressure and that's before we begin to think about where the water could come from?

reply to post by Miniscuzz


It is because Mars IS inhabited by at least six different species according to Bob Dean, who claims to have been there.

He is very informative, but I do believe he's an atheist however, and that kind of muddies the waters for me, but he's interesting to listen to, as he's been involved in many black ops over the years.

Funny, looks EXACTLY like the one "pixel" that doesn't work on my flat screen anymore! and I mean EXACTLY. Or maybe Mikey Martian left the porch light on again, the world will never know !

reply to post by maceov


Well he did have that "Cosmic Clearance" in the military so he would know right??

originally posted by: Kandinsky
It does, doesn't it? It's low on the list as Mars is thought to be *almost* geologically dead. Without such activity, there shouldn't be much chance of the processes occurring that cause geysers. No heat, no pressure and that's before we begin to think about where the water could come from?

Well, the Moon is pretty dead, too, yet occasionally it will have TLP as a result (supposedly) of outgassing of some kind. Mars does have underground water. We know that. Other frozen gasses? Maybe. And we know that it has erosion caused by the wind and sand, as well as the occasional meteor strike. Some kind of gas leak sparked by static electricity generated by the wind?

At least these babies aren't right on the horizon line. Upper right corner:
mars.jpl.nasa.gov...


P.S. -- I win, because I found two!

a reply to: Blue Shift

Oh my god, they've learnt to fly!

Nice spot. That right navcam again. But sorry, no special prize for two because (as in sure you knew anyway) the smaller dot to the right is a single pixel that has been intermittently stuck for quite a while. It's been mentioned before, and you can also see it in, eg, this frame from the same sol:
mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

a reply to: jamvell



To make it more clear

I don't exclude some kind of pixels defect causing this, but it's looking a bit odd to me. I've seen the other pictures with stuck pixels and it don't really match. Using the raw image, I've zoomed in and counted 21 pixels affected by this "spot" or image artifact...

a reply to: jamvell

That's because it's a cosmic ray strike on the censor.