Rover captures light source on Mars!!

Aeboro

Sorry, I used paint to edit xD
Take your conclusions

edit on 4~10~2014 by Aeboro because: just a sec

edit on 4~10~2014 by Aeboro because: edit

to my untrained but still critical eye....
the image might well be a outgassing plume of methane gas, because it appears to be spreading out at the top of the 'pillar-of-light' (instead of being an obelisk's surface reflecting light)
Thus, the explaination for the mysterious presence of 'organic' methane gas in the Mars atmosphere (pockets of microbes producing methane as a byproduct of living underground)

just why the event was captured on one camera but not the other ...would tend to support the 'cosmic ray' explaination..
I wonder why the word ' Anomaly' is not being used in this instance of apparent bugs in the camera or of cosmic happenstance

Why don't we have new pics yet in the same general direction? Doesn't it take ~one day to send the command and ~one to get new pics back? I am too busy right now to look into the exact numbers -- I know there is more to it, like the fact that they have to approve any changes to the rover's pre-planned script for the sol/etc. Anyone have any guesses as to when we will get more pics? Surely NASA wants a second opinion on whether it's a camera anomaly/etc.

Not a single post in this thread all day (well, since mine this morning). Guess you guys have something more interesting to discuss than a GIANT PILLAR OF LIGHT ON MARS. :-P

Any updates?

reply to post by AkumaStreak


Yes Update here........

uk.news.yahoo.com...

reply to post by Phage


Explanation 1: because the light is highly directional or the picture is not of exactly the same moment. Really unlikely for the directional option, at that distance. Only a very highly focussed laser would remain to focussed. Which would make it interesting to see which color the light was. See, if it seems like a white spec, it cannot be a laser, and the only explanation is a hit from a cosmic ray on the sensor. It would create such an image.
So...only a monochrome spec could possibly have been a laser. But, seriously. Someone illuminating a rover on a distant planet without simply walking to it seems a little less likely than the MOST ordinary occurance of a hit from a cosmic ray on a planet with virtuall no shielding atmosphere or magnetic field.
Thus: cosmic ray.

reply to post by Miniscuzz


ive read some of these wackos theories about this and none of them represent anything concrete apart from trying to explain the unexplainable
So many physicists on this site who pretend to know everything its really amusing hence why i joined

Canttakedacrap
reply to post by Miniscuzz

 

ive read some of these wackos theories about this and none of them represent anything concrete apart from trying to explain the unexplainable
So many physicists on this site who pretend to know everything its really amusing hence why i joined

edit on 13-4-2014 by Canttakedacrap because: (no reason given)

What's unexplainable about cosmic rays?

why doesn't cnn focus some time on the mysteries on Mars too.

ugh

I signed up to ask, if it IS a cosmic ray or something similar, why haven't any of the lunar pics from Apollo shown something similar? And these were fairly unshielded cameras and film, as compared to the Rover's high-tech imagery.

reply to post by ipfreely32


Apollo cameras weren't digital.

ETA - Seeing cosmic rays in space

Light flashes

reply to post by Kandinsky


" Some of the flashes observed in space may be caused by direct ionization interactions of cosmic rays with the retina. "

Thank you, this is the point i am trying to make, if the cosmic rays were affecting their retinas, would this not play havoc with the film?

The only real adaption for basically a consumer available camera was painting them silver. ( and yes, i know, adapted for static electricity, but which was only caused by adding a plate for the crosshairs in the first place, a fix basically.)

(3) The Data Camera was given a silver finish to make it more resistant to thermal variations that ranged from full Sun to full shadow helping maintain a more uniform internal temperature. The two magazines carried along with the Data Camera also had silver finishes.

www.hq.nasa.gov...

reply to post by ipfreely32


and nothing really special about the film,



Finally, The film used on Apollo-11 was the same type carried on the other flights - a Kodak special thin-based and thin emulsion double-perforated 70 mm film - which permitted 160 pictures in color or 200 on black/white in each loading.

reply to post by ipfreely32


The real puzzler, to me, is why the flash seems to be originating from the same area of the same ridge.

It likely is a "cosmic ray" strike... but it striking the area of the camera, twice, so that it appears on the same ridge is odd... though the orientation of the cameras are such that an internal glitch producing the flash in the same general line of pixels that is pointed at the horizon/ridge line isn't so statistically rare.

A quick, transient electrical discharge on that ridge... like a Martian St. Elmo's Fire... might be an answer. An answer that generates a whole lot more questions, though.

I don't know if the thin Martian atmosphere could support an ionizing discharge... or if an electrically based light is even feasible there... but something along those lines would seem a likely answer... to this layperson, anyway.

Still vexing.

reply to post by ipfreely32


Photographic film is affected by cosmic rays but in a different manner than digital sensors. With long term exposure photographic film can be "fogged" but because the high energy particles are so small they do not produce visible effects with individual strikes. A microscopic examination would be required in order to detect them. By contrast, the particle affects an entire pixel (as well as surrounding pixels), making the strike visible to the naked eye in digital images.

science1.nasa.gov...

ipfreely32
reply to post by ipfreely32

 

and nothing really special about the film,

Finally, The film used on Apollo-11 was the same type carried on the other flights - a Kodak special thin-based and thin emulsion double-perforated 70 mm film - which permitted 160 pictures in color or 200 on black/white in each loading.

And nothing really special about the film backs either. The cameras were adapted versions of the Hasselblad 500 with motor, but with oil and grease substituted for use in vacuum and a metallic housing. The camera comes (or came) standard with replaceable backs, and the backs were simply standard Hasselblad 70mm backs that had been likewise adapted. I have one of those backs (not the space version though) still lying around (as well as a camera to attach it to, again not the space version).

Really, really nothing special at all about the cameras they used. Just space-adapted but otherwise ordinary, high-end professional gear of the same kind as many professionals at the time were using in studios down on earth. And what good equipment it was.

.2 Radiation Basics
Light is a form of radiation and consists of the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Energy is required to expose photographic films. Although light is a common form of this
energy, nonvisible types of energy such as infrared and ultraviolet radiation are also capable of
photographic exposure. More energetic radiation, such as x-rays, gamma rays, and assorted
ionizing particles, can produce a base exposure on film resulting in increased base plus fog
density. Film can be protected from light exposure by enclosing it in a light-free environment.
Shielding film from more energetic radiation, however, is not as easily accomplished.


and all Apollo mission pics with 70mm Kodak film have no flaws?


ston.jsc.nasa.gov...

reply to post by ipfreely32

and all Apollo mission pics with 70mm Kodak film have no flaws?

Have you examined the original film with a microscope?
If not, how do you know there are no cosmic ray strikes on it?

reply to post by Phage


Well heres an article on the whole thing and he narrows it down to two things a reflection or cosmic ray strike and hes not excited about the reflection idea.

www.slate.com...

reply to post by Phage


Expanding on what Phage says, the Apollo surface photos were taken on 70mm film. The pixel size on the Curiosity navcams is 12 microns (0.012mm) square.

dragonridr
Well heres an article on the whole thing and he narrows it down to two things a reflection or cosmic ray strike and hes not excited about the reflection idea.

I love Phil's payoff line there:

No, it’s far more mundane, merely the quantized energy deposited by a subatomic particle that was accelerated in the magnetic fields of an exploded star and traveled thousands of light years across the galaxy at nearly the speed of light to finally slam into an electronic camera mounted on a mobile nuclear-powered laser-eyed chemical laboratory humans sent to another planet.

Clearly, reality’s not cool enough.