Weird Mars Landing Sites Selected By NASA!

Originally posted by mikesingh
Hey ArMaP! Eureka! Here it is. Check it out 1/4th the way down in the central portion. It's small as the image is taken from a couple of hundred km up, but it stands out like a sore thumb! It's atop a small hill feature.

hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu...

Cheers!

is this it mike? beside the dark patch? (the big version of this photo reminds me of the ocean at some parts, I've never seen martian water though so i can't comment lol)

mars seems to be full of snowy hills and mountains but no life


[edit on 25-4-2008 by OSSkyWatcher]

reply to post by OSSkyWatcher


Hi OSS! Nope! That's not the one! It's here...




Here's another one. Can you see a geometric trench-like formation within which there is a structure which seems to be spewing out 'gas'! Needless to say, this most likely is a natural formation, but is intriguing all the same!



From here:
hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu...

reply to post by mikesingh


It looks very nice Mike: good find!
Here's an enhancement



I can't find the second one that you've posted (where's it located, more or less, in the image?):
there's another interesting formation inside a crater in the same image:

it recalls me the alleged alien spacecraft on the Moon LOL.

reply to post by mikesingh


Thanks, mikesingh.

As these images have a 26.7 cm/pixel resolution, this feature is some 24 metres long by 8 metres wide.

This is the full sized IRB version.

The IRB images are not true colour (or even approximate true colour) because they are made with infra-red, red and green+blue filter instead of red, green and blue.

This is the RGB version.

Although called RGB, these images are not really created with red, green and blue filters because the camera is not equipped with individual green and blue filters, it has only a filter for both green and blue. The RGB images are created by using a synthetic blue and the green+blue filter as green. The synthetic blue is create by multiplying the values of each pixel from the green+blue filter by 2 minus 30% of the values from the red filter.

As they say here (from where I got this information):

"This is not unique data, but provides a more appealing way to display the color variations present in just two bandpasses, RED and BG."

And this is the grayscale image from the red filter.


Mikesingh (or anyone else), if you want to look for strange features, "anomalies" or just look at those photos I suggest that you download IAS viewer (link available on the bottom left of this page) and use it, it has many good features and it allows the viewing of the JPEG2000 files online, downloading only the area we are looking at.

Those JPEG2000 files are the only files available at full resolution. The image you use is only 2048x10345 (including the title) while the full resolution JP2000 file is a 12952x64193 image.

reply to post by internos


Wow! That sure looks like a buried spacecraft like that one on the Moon (Apollo 20). I've tried enlarging it further to see what it looks like. Note that 'bubble' on the nose cone.



And yes, that second pic you wanted to know, its in the same strip about 1/3rd the way down, just left of that huge crater.

Cheers!

reply to post by ArMaP


Thanks ArMaP! You rock! Now what do you think it is? Strange for a natural formation, what?

And why the devil do you have the A, M, and P in capitals? It's a pain typing it out. Why can't it just be plain and simple 'Armap'???

reply to post by mikesingh


Is that second feature this one?


I have noticed while playing with some of the images from my previous post that if I added a second, grayscale layer, reduced its visibility to 50%, shifted one pixel to the right and one pixel to the top, and used the "Difference" blend mode it gives a darker image but it makes the "texture" (for lack of a better word) of the image more visible.

This is the same image as above, after that "treatment".


And this is the one from the previous post.


Unfortunately (and obviously) it also shows all the "noise" in the image.

Originally posted by ArMaP
reply to post by mikesingh

 

Is that second feature this one?

Yep! You've got a much better res there! So it doesn't seem to be any 'object' there, but that trench looks rather geometric.

I have noticed while playing with some of the images from my previous post that if I added a second, grayscale layer, reduced its visibility to 50%, shifted one pixel to the right and one pixel to the top, and used the "Difference" blend mode it gives a darker image but it makes the "texture" (for lack of a better word) of the image more visible.

Now that sounds Portuguese to me!!

But the net result is amazing!!

reply to post by mikesingh


It's really a bit strange, but not that much, it may be just one of those cases where the top of some rocky gets eroded and the rock at the top remains in its place, making it look a little out of place.

I have downloaded the original IMG file where that feature is (image PSP_005556_1560_RED5_1.IMG, available here) and, after cropping, rotating it to a similar position and adjusting the light levels, I got this image, a little better than the grayscale image available (mostly because the levels adjustment was applied just to this area and the whole image).


And this is after the "texture enhancement treatment".



PS: the capitals are there because they are really my initials. ArMaP is the first two letters of my first name, the first two letters of my second name and the first letter of my last name.

Here's an artist's rendition of that structure...



Looks cool, eh?

Here's another one. Look carefully and you'll see some pretty strange formations...


Mawrth Vallis (PSP_003063_2050)
Courtesy: NASA/JPL/UA

reply to post by Havalon


No worries about the rough INTERESTING terrain...

they went for flat and bland...



so they could show us more of the usual

RED TINTED GROUND even though this is at the pole

reply to post by zorgon


Tonight on the local 6 o'clock news they showed what looked to be 2 patches of ice beneath the Phoenix Lander which is no surprise. Lets see if NASA is brave enough to release that life exists on Mars next. Do I hear staged LOL. If you look in the middle of photo you will see a series of white letters and numbers with the big number 6, maybe it is the Martonians 6 o'clock news. Looking toward the upper left of photo you presented of the Phoenix Lander sight you will see what looks to be the sequence K89. From viewing the few photos that are clear this landing sight is loaded with life and they all came to see who came to dinner. Rik Riley

As usual, the most intriguing demonstration by all of you guys, and how well you work in unison never ceases to amaze me.

Better watch out NASA will be snatching you away from us!

I also noticed how the strange columns seem to have others less visible and much smaller to the right of the main one.

Yep , those are some great pictures up there.

I hope we see some results also soon from the current lander without alot of NASA bla bla bla..

The news of the lander on ICE has been on the news all day..

Originally posted by mikesingh
Here’s some of NASA’s projected landing sites on Mars. The area covered is fairly large but I’ve zoomed on to the areas that seem pretty anomalous, having strange geological formations and areas with weird looking ‘objects’.

One has a pyramid shaped structure in a crater fed by what look like pipes entering them from the op. Then there’s one with a strange structure on top of a hill that doesn’t conform to the natural surroundings. It does seem to be artificial, but that’s not possible, is it? And how about the strange objects seen inside sharply defined edges in depressions?

I haven’t the faintest idea. But then why has NASA selected these strange looking landing sites? A far cry from the ‘barren dessert’ sites of the earlier missions. Are they finally trying to get some answers to some of the anomalies?

The proposed landing sites.

Take a little time to look at these images carefully. The more you study them, the stranger they will seem!









Cheers!

Source images:

hirise.lpl.arizona.edu...

Hmmm? Found this old thread.

"Then there’s one with a strange structure on top of a hill that doesn’t conform to the natural surroundings."

Is this the landing spot referred to in the op, where Curiosity landed? Was that what we saw in the first image released that was later altered?