Curiosity: Potential Anomalies (Update 01/2014)

Or, do we know if that much dust can be accumulated on the rock exposed like that one? There is wind activity on Mars, right?

a reply to: darkorange

Yes, there's wind on Mars, but from what I have seen in these last years in all the photos from Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix and Curiosity, although the winds are strong, the thin atmosphere doesn't allow the carrying of the larger dust particles, only the smaller get moved by the wind.

In fact, some days ago, while looking at the photos to make a panorama, I got the impression that I was looking at two different wind erosion patterns, as if there was a previous, strong winds erosion before the present weaker winds with no real erosion and just thin dust movement.

Looks like the mysterions live on mars,circle just above center mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

originally posted by: symptomoftheuniverse
Looks like the mysterions live on mars,circle just above center mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

That looks like some kind of lens-reflection. If not, it's a ghost, a round shiny daylight-dwelling Mars ghost out for a stroll (or a float). An interesting photo anomaly though, I haven't seen such reflections before on Mars pics.

a reply to: Aleister
Its the first i have seen. Theres also one on the left cam at the same time but in a slightly different position.
Captain charlotte drums- dum dum dum da dum

originally posted by: darkorange
Or, do we know if that much dust can be accumulated on the rock exposed like that one? There is wind activity on Mars, right?

Although there is very little wind activity, there is certainly activity on this thread, as yours is its 3,000th post!

a reply to: symptomoftheuniverse

That's a perfect photo to show to the "non-parallel shadows" Apollo hoax crew.



Oh and the "lens flare orb" crew too.

As you can see, the sun was only just out of frame on this shot, so hardly surprising that we ended up with a flare.

Good find

originally posted by: ArMaP
In fact, some days ago, while looking at the photos to make a panorama, I got the impression that I was looking at two different wind erosion patterns, as if there was a previous, strong winds erosion before the present weaker winds with no real erosion and just thin dust movement.

I continue to be surprised by the lack of obvious all-over erosion. I also understand that most of the time -- except during those large global sandstorms -- the wind is very thin and doesn't carry large particles. So the abrasion is going to be very weak.

On the other hand, we're talking about a surface that supposedly hasn't changed much in hundreds of thousands of years, and even a little bit of abrasion is going to add up over time. So there really shouldn't be so may rocks with so many sharp edges.

Unless -- Mars is periodically slammed by waves of asteroids that crack and blast the surface and keep it looking relatively fresh, with sharp-edged rocks and different kinds of rocky materials mixed together.

My concern is that if this happens periodically to Mars, it could very well also happen to Earth, even though we're pretty far from the Asteroid Belt (where I assume the material comes from). That doesn't bode well for us. Although if it happens every few thousand years, what do I care? I'll be long dead before it happens again.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Unless -- Mars is periodically slammed by waves of asteroids that crack and blast the surface and keep it looking relatively fresh, with sharp-edged rocks and different kinds of rocky materials mixed together.

I don't think it is, as the sharp-edged rocks we see don't look "fresher" than the rest, appear to be made of the same materials as other rocks around them and appear to be just a few (maybe 4 or 5) types of rock.

All of the above makes me think that what we are seeing are the same scenes as they were some thousands of years ago, but I don't know those thousands were many or just a few.

originally posted by: Aleister

originally posted by: darkorange
Or, do we know if that much dust can be accumulated on the rock exposed like that one? There is wind activity on Mars, right?

Although there is very little wind activity, there is certainly activity on this thread, as yours is its 3,000th post!

Oh, good news, Aleister) I felt very special for a moment). Lets do another 1000 posts on this great thread with many more thought provoking findings.

cheers)

originally posted by: Rob48
a reply to: symptomoftheuniverse

That's a perfect photo to show to the "non-parallel shadows" Apollo hoax crew.

Oh and the "lens flare orb" crew too.

As you can see, the sun was only just out of frame on this shot, so hardly surprising that we ended up with a flare.

Good find

and theres no stars!
I am still 50 50 or 60 42 that man has been on the moon. Put another one on and then i will be 100 percent

a reply to: symptomoftheuniverse

As I look at Rob's picture now it looks like puppet rocks, with the red strings attached to the rocks as a form of nano-wire technology which moves and bends along with the pressure the person controlling the rocks moves, but is light and maneuverable enough to learn to control - thus making them able to be held at long distances but still not on a regular wire, on a nano wirer, so one person can operate it from a central point. The nano-wire puppet strings dance the rocks around, and recite the plays written which use dialogue from each of the rocks (some of them will have bigger roles than others, as the story of Mars' evolution and all the things it's seen becomes illustrated and comes out in both spoken and sung dialogue) while they dance around. Andrew Lloyd Weber could produce it, but at best it's a 12 minute interest-holder (the novelty of rocks dancing around on unseen nanowires before a live audience might be 12 minutes, and someone could get a lot of content into there in that time).

The curtain opens and the audience see the rocks and the landscape...

...but the nano-wire is way too thin to even be lit up when the lights hit it. To all intents and purposes these rocks are flying around or crawling on the ground on their own. Malkovich is the puppetter.


...or wait, looking at it again I see the nano-wires lead up and away from the point where they meet, and if they are the same length as the bottom portion it means that a whole team of puppeteers could be operating the rocks, but their direct from nerve-to-string communication meets and is blended by a computer which resides at the central point in the middle, where all the nano-wires meet and obtain movement.

a reply to: this thread

Tons of new MastCam images are in (sols 617/618) ... after a brief review, I found another possible crinoid holdfast on the below image from sol 617:



For comparison, the above pic shows what these fellows looked like on Earth, eons ago. I think we never had any close-up images from such a short distance. Although it may also be something less spectacular, I think this looks quite promising & exciting (perhaps this belongs in the 1% category, Aleister?)


Source Image

a reply to: jeep3r

Great catch!

Acquatic environment everywhere in Gale Lake.

What NASA still waiting? Luna Cognita?

originally posted by: jeep3r
Tons of new MastCam images are in (sols 617/618) ... after a brief review, I found another possible crinoid holdfast on the below image from sol 617:

Good find, but I think it's a geological feature and not the result of a biological entity.

a reply to: ArMaP

Most probably, but this does at least look like something slightly interesting rather than "a square rock" or "a round rock"!

a reply to: Rob48

It does look interesting, that's why I commented, those that I think are not that interesting I just ignore them.

a reply to: jeep3r

Yep, a very good find. And I'd put it in the one-percent category (for new readers, that means it maybe has a 1% chance of being a biological fossil - and at that percentage shouldn't professional geologists and marine-biologists take a look at it and write a visual analysis?) only because of how it seems to be "set into" the rock. It's set-in as a circle, and seems to have been there already when the rock was forming (wouldn't the edge be much less distinct if it developed after the rock?). When looking at these things I think the shapes, the look-alikes, and how the objects differ from the surrounding rock, all play parts in upping it to that one-percent category. It'd be better if there were more of them in the same rock or in the immediate vicinity, and for that alone I'd say it lessens the odds a little, maybe down to half-of-a-percent, which is maybe where the scale ought to be anyway. So where are the geologists and marine-biologists when the dust hits the (camera) pan?

Squidly. Yeah, there are stratified layers. But it's interesting when then curve together and join.

mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

When looking for this stuff, I'm of two minds about it. On one hand, I understand that the surface we're looking at in the images could be well over a billion years old. So it's pretty unlikely that something like a fossil, even if they existed, would still be recognizable after all that time. The abrasion from dust is slow, but after a billion years, it's going to add up. The denser material will remain after the less dense material has worn away, of course, but there's still going to be wear and tear.

On the other hand, it's easy to see where stratified layers have separated, and where some rocks have split open. That could provide an opportunity to have the fossil exposed, and in relatively decent shape. We might be looking at surfaces that are maybe a few thousand years old, rather than a billion. I suspect that the rocks with more bluish gray in them are displaying younger surfaces. That seems to be what the polishing tool is showing.

So who knows? If there was life in this area long enough to evolve relatively complex forms like "C" shaped shrimpy things, or corals or three-shelled clams or whatever, then maybe our chances of spotting them are not all that bad.

There definitely seem to be more of them in some areas than others (particularly transitional areas with a variety of rock types) which might be another possibly important indicator.

Erosion on Mars really can produce some weird and wonderful things. I give you... Martian lace



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