Curiosity: Potential Anomalies (Update 01/2014)

a reply to: Blue Shift

That their is a tad intriguing. It does actually look like someones dog has "marked" his territory

Regarding the rocks themselves, I'm having a hard time discerning anything. Some of them honestly look like rocks, except for that spinal-column.

a reply to: Skeletonized

Rocks have the qualities of rocks. But dog markings, ah, that's a horse of a different color.

Here's a little larger pic of Blue Shift's something-flowing stream at its further downstream point, and gosh-blueit, those edges are, to me, indicative of something-flowing. This pic isn't that large, so zoom in for a look-around the end of the flow area:

a reply to: ArMaP

I had to actually sign up to reply but if you check on the panorama 710, and zoom in about 1/4 of the way down from the top edge, around the end of the rounded rocky ridge in the left extreme of the image.

Sorry if difficult directions, as im doing this over a phone so cant exactly edit the image. Anyway, what youre looking for is clearly spherical and has a sheen to it, like a metallic or reflective surface in sunlight.

You can see rough/sandy terrain in the background but i think the anomaly is closer...

Tell me what you think.

As a final thought: Nice to be finally a member, though I have been following threads for a while now
This topic interests me as I feel that these raw images glean much more concrete and short term benefits for a bigger understanding than other parts of this forum where im not that usefull possibly. Here i dont need to have all the background knowledge, simple intuition and common sense helps equally Like the "Rock Spring" that I noticed someone of you pulled out of the image, amazing find!

EDIT: Im starting to see so many in that image im starting to think its a speck of dust in the lens and not an anomaly...

However, found another nice stone together with the speck of dust/alien ping-pong ball/whatever (dont know if someone already commented on it with what seems to be indentations of some kind in a weird trilobyte-ish fashion...im not taking guesses though

Nice snake-like tail on this... stone

a reply to: Aleister

apparently the skull on the right could too. rock guy on the left has no opinion, rumoured to be distant cousin of 'rock guy', less emotional though



funbox

a reply to: MacChiavell1

Good find. Although it's very zoomed in on, and contains photo artifacts, the image itself indicates an oddly-shaped rock if nothing else. Does the 'tail' show segments?



a reply to: funbox

The guy on the left looks like a faced-cracked Incredible Hulk. Wouldn't want to meet him in a dark Martian alley.

a reply to: Aleister

dark Martian alleys Aleister ? I didn't know you had connections to Martian pimpery no wonder the *its* rebelled

if you look carefully you can just see the edge of a gold tooth , just on the edge of his deadpan lips



funbox

originally posted by: Aleister
Yeah, see, no posts on this for a few hours, and here you may have discovered flowing water on Mars (a one-percent chance of that for sure, does anyone not think that?). So maybe you should make an offshoot thread (we've had some doozies) and get more eyes on it and more minds coming up with explanations. Seems like the way to go on this one, imnho.

I tend to think that there is a more mundane explanation for it than flowing water (some kind of thick, heavily saline water that unthaws from between the rocks certain times a year when the sun hits it just right). There are other similar markings in the area. Unless along this ridge is just where the aquifer comes to the surface -- if there is an aquifer after all this time. It's interesting, but unless Curiosity is willing to pause a moment from its mad dash to the mountain, shoot a laser beam into it for fun, we'll never know.

originally posted by: funbox

a reply to: Blue Shift

I didn't think it was regularly flowing water, but periodic, as you indicate. In any case, or whatever it actually is, this find is break-off thread worthy, so more people can share in seeing the discovery/sight/soggy. This thread only gets so many views from the site regulars, who, not realizing we are at the dawn of the exploration of Mars, may tend to skip any blips or mentions of this thread on ATS's ''Recent' listings. If you don't want to put up a thread I'd be happy to host it, with appropriate credit to you. But you should do it, imnho.

Funbox, we now not only have a zoo of animals, but are expanding into comic book icons. Gold teeth and all!

originally posted by: Aleister
If you don't want to put up a thread I'd be happy to host it, with appropriate credit to you. But you should do it, imnho.

Please go ahead if you want to. I don't really like to start threads.

a reply to: MacChiavell1

Sorry, I can't see what you mean.

Is it in this left part of the panorama? If yes, in which section?

a reply to: ArMaP

dont worry about it, ive so far seen it maybe 5 times in that image alone + in others... its something tiny, physically on the lens....

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Well, the implication would be that it's a flow of darker-colored dust being funneled down from a higher layer. However, it doesn't account for the indication that it has not really moved or covered the lower, lighter-colored dust, but rather simply darkened it, as you would expect from a liquid.

I don't think so, we can see the thickness of that darker flow at it's end. The other areas like that also show some thickness.

New panorama, for Sol 712, including that flow area.

a reply to: ArMaP

that could also be said to be a symptom of water *briny more so ?*, its leading edge would carry more particulates via the meniscus effect, those that would be carried along in the flow joining up with particulates on the leading edge, creating the deposits when the flow slows

if it slid down the slope from the rock would it display such curves along its path and ends ?, along its divergences ? surely this is a tell tale sign of liquid movement ..

funbox

a reply to: Aleister

Great idea.
I agree....More people will get to see this image and more suggestions as to what the "flow " is may be given by other members.

a reply to: funbox

Not being on expert on flow mechanics, I too would guess liquid instead of dust, with the explanation you gave above fitting into how I see it but you said it much better than I was going to. The ends just seem to be sand accumulation laid down at the end of the flow. A good flow mechanics expert can probably tell us what speed it was going (compensating for gravity), what it hit along the way to make it break off into two sections, the amount of tension in the flow, and much more I can't think of now. If it's a dust flow (is that what you're thinking, ArMap?) then it's coming out of one very restricted place and expanding as it dust-flows along. Where would it be coming from, in either case?

Anyone else think an off-shoot thread is called for in this instance?

EDIT: Whoops, I see lambros56 seconded the idea as I was writing this post. I'll work something up, post it, and please, everyone here, can you join that one for awhile? Thanks. Back in a few minutes with a link.

Here is the link to the thread about Blue Shift's discovery. It'll be interesting to see what people have to say about this.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: Aleister

Yes, I think it's a dust flow, like all others, one of the reasons being the thickness and another the fact that, as far as I know, a liquid flow has a tendency of getting thinner closer to the end, as the liquid gets "used" to moist the ground, and that's not what we see.

a reply to: ArMaP

Thanks. Can you go to the break-off thread and give your opinion there as well? I don't know about previous dust flows, so this was new to me, hence my suggesting a break-off thread to get more opinions about it.