It is the parachute which it used to slow down descent speed and land safely it releases it as it approaches a few metres above the ground.

looks like im a couple of years late on this piece of wood....

no doubt in my mind.

It is probably a camera test object or obstacle at the mars scape test site where they tested the rover prototype to work out major bugs. Someone may have gotten that picture out of an old archive. Hoax is pretty high up there also.

Originally posted by Velvet Death
It is probably a camera test object or obstacle at the mars scape test site where they tested the rover prototype to work out major bugs. Someone may have gotten that picture out of an old archive. Hoax is pretty high up there also.

definatly not a haox,as the picture is on the nasa website

as for wether or not it's wood,well that's open to interpretation,and without a colour picture,it's hard to tell.

and for those who pearoasted this,this morning,thank you,I'd not seen this before

Originally posted by Velvet Death
It is probably a camera test object or obstacle at the mars scape test site where they tested the rover prototype to work out major bugs. Someone may have gotten that picture out of an old archive. Hoax is pretty high up there also.

Maybe just maybe, people should take like .. ya'know 5-10 minutes extra on top of their posts to visit the sites where the picture is and the information regarding the picture..... ya'know just to avoid highly speculative conjecture.

Just because it WAS a piece of wood doesn't mean it is anymore... it could be petrified (lack of water) meaning it is now stone.

Well, at least we don't have to worry about Martian technology being better than ours?

We quit using timber for railway sleepers twenty years ago and now use re-enforced concrete instead.

Here's a handful of closer looks at it for everyone....

Cool picture. Could this piece of wood have been brought to Mars secretly for a top secret NASA mission? We would never know.

Thats absolutley insane, it looks like a railroad tie, or sleeper to us Brits.

Everytime I see something like this, I keep feeling someone is going to find this Probe out in the AZ desert somewhere, either that or the fella in my Avatar left it there when he found Beagle 2, he had to give his kid something for his Birthday afterall.

Why do these lies continue?

First of all it definitely isn't wood. It's just an eroded rock and there are many more on the picture, only not so obvious (many are up and right on the edge of the crater). Secondly, if it was wood, it would have to be sliced by intelligent life, since it has so sharp edges. The bright thing behind the "wood" is definitely the lander and it's heat shield.

Someone also mentioned it was photoshoped. Do you really think NASA would fake a "wood" in the picture and show it on it's official site?? And if it was wood, would NASA just keep it on the site??
Think about it.....

It is a remnant from Noah's Ark discovered on Mars.
I'm sure I read about it in the Weekly World News right next to the story of Bat Boy suing Batman in paternity suit.

Clearly one of the very visible chunks of the rock layer upended somehow. Beyond that any claim made would be a pure guess. You would have to be blind not to notice the plates of rocks from that layer covering the ground. To call that wood you would have to pretend those rock plates were not there or visible. Shame so many like to pretend things like that.

Mars Anomaly Research dot com is an embarrassment to those of us serious about this.

Originally posted by sovietman
And if it was wood, would NASA just keep it on the site??
Think about it.....

What would NASA do? Ask them. Ask them what they would do if they could neither confirm nor deny what that object actually is. If you get an answer it might go something like this..."We have no official finding or opinion about object #whatevernumber, in photograph #whatevernumber and we have no other official statement about it at this time. And this would be the official statement until the cows came home. Nasa isn't about to pull a public photo from the internet because some one thinks something looks like a piece of wood, or a tree, ape, cow, Darth Vader riding a walrus, etc. They just won't comment on it other than to refer to an object and photo number.

Originally posted by sovietman
First of all it definitely isn't wood. It's just an eroded rock and there are many more on the picture, only not so obvious (many are up and right on the edge of the crater). Secondly, if it was wood, it would have to be sliced by intelligent life, since it has so sharp edges. The bright thing behind the "wood" is definitely the lander and it's heat shield.

Someone also mentioned it was photoshoped. Do you really think NASA would fake a "wood" in the picture and show it on it's official site?? And if it was wood, would NASA just keep it on the site??
Think about it.....

Thank you, I agree with you in your first paragraph. I was hoping someone would post it because I am crap at describing how I see some things like this, often causing more confusion than anything.

But you can also see that the 'wood' appears to be covered in the soil slightly on the left back, which - if you look at it closly - gives the impression that the size is not actually sleeper shaped, but could be any size, but that the revealed section is the edge.

The area is made up from broken and eroded sections of rock covered in soil, so my opinion (opinion only mind, not factual statement ) is that it is just a good illusion given the photography and angle.

Besides, if you build a wooden base on mars, it wooden keep the air in !! *boom boom*

*sorry for bad pun*