Mars Rover Opportunity camera catches UFO?

couldn't help but to laugh at some of you. Seriously, I was sitting here laughing. Any LITTLE thing you see you'll assume it's a UFO. No wonder why the people who believe in UFO's are labled crazy... It's because of people like you. Taking any little thing you find and saying it's a UFO.

You make me sick. If you know everything just tell us what this thing is. At this point there is no proof, just suppositions. We are not crazy, we just deny ignorance, we open eyes, we try to find an answer, and we definitively don't need your frustrated and useless comment.

Skadi,

Here is a little bit of info on the "stuff" that went into the heat shield.
They actually used CORK, and some other things.

From Space.com
The blunt-nosed cone of a heat shield was covered with a layer of phenolic honeycomb. A phenolic compound is made from benzene and is typically used in various plastics, disinfectants, and pharmaceuticals. This phenolic honeycomb is filled with an ablative material -- also called an ablator -- which dissipates heat generated by atmospheric friction.

The ablator itself is a unique blend of cork wood, binder and many tiny silica glass spheres. The heat shield has a thick, one-half inch (12.7 millimeter) layer of the ablator.

Original Article

well just finally *hour or so later* got thru the 6 pages of posts *collapses*

First off, I used to look into / study the entire UFO/ET stuff long time ago *well from ages 15-17*

only recently did I get back into it and I hate to admit it I only found ATS last night *scuffs his feet*

I see the pic and it looks to me like the standard "can't identify" picture that we all see.
just the only thing with this one is the fact that its on mars, and that its from a "credible" source (IE: NASA).

My first thought originally was that it was debris of some sort. but then I too noticed the light refraction of the top of it, which again led me to think debris.

honestly at this point in time I can't draw a specific conclusion as to what it could be.
I'm left with the first obvious conclusion that its of ET origin *which is kinda exciting* and the second conclusion that it is a piece of debris after all.

but yeah even I could tell *and I don't know lick about photograpy* that it wasn't a spec of dust.....

I eagerly await any type of "official" explination...

anyways I think I'm rambling now, but you all will be hearing alot from me atleast in this forum and its a pleasure to be here....

I posted this earlier as a link. I was hoping to get everyone's opinion on
the dot clearly visible in this picture! It appears to be different from the first picture.

The idea of it being debris from the Rover's heatshield is interesting, good thinking there spacedoubt. Definitely sounds like a good conventional explanation and worth investigating further. But after briefly looking at the the debris idea, i'm not 100% sure of it and not ready to conclude my thoughts on this.

I'm still convinced that the object is indeed in the sky at a pretty far distance away from the Rover, at least a few hundred feet away (guessing of course). Which means this piece of "debris" would have to be quite large to appear in the pic, right? And judging by the pic, there is no other debris flying around and no evident appearance of sand moving about in the air, it doesnt seem to me that there's terribly violent winds blowing. At least violent enough to lift a large piece of debris into the air like that. So while it's a good possible explanation, i'm not 100% convinced of it.

So yeah, to sum up my thoughts so far i'm still thinking it's an actual object in the sky...craft or debris...and NOT dust on the actual camera lens. My main reasons for thinking so are simply from looking at it, you can plainly see the depth of the object and that it has a shadow on it's underside, plus dust on the lens would be noticible in the pictures taken with that specific camera before and/or after the picture in question...not the case here. Also, dust on the lens would be 2D and more blurred much like the pic kode posted of the dust from Spirit navcam left, not 3D and pretty clear looking like this object. As far as the right and left camera goes, i havent seen anything from NASA that confirms how the two camera's take photos although the article i linked to in my first post claims the left camera snaps pics some milliseconds before the right camera. Confirmation on this would be great as it would prove the right camera may have just missed the object.

Also, since i'm the thread starter i'd like to second what sdrumrummer and Sovaka said about Sabac's posts. I, as well as many others here take interest in debunking photos such as this, for the primary reason of seeking TRUTH. That's all i want, to find the truth. You know, deny ignorance and all that (great motto BTW). If there's a strange object in the sky on Mars that appears to be buzzing one of NASA's Rovers then sure, i'm going to be interested in it. But like every other sighting, i'm never going to automatically conclude that it's extraterrestrial. Just simply that [for the time being] it's a UFO...and for you few out there that are confused that means unidentified flying object, not alien space craft. Until it becomes identified, it's interesting to me.

[edit on 17/1/05 by Meteor_of_War]

Meteor_of_war,

It's going to be hard to ever be 100%.
But I appreciate you not "blowing off" my idea here, no pun intended..LOL

We should probably look into the components that make up the entire heat shield assembly. And remember, in all of NASA's spacecraft, weight is one of the key factors in determining wether a component gets to fly or not.

I could imagine some things getting pretty crunched on impact. And that it's possible that some things came apart in layers. It may not have taken much wind to keep something with the lightness similar to mylar (not actually mylar, it would have melted) aloft.

If the pic was snapped JUST AFTER a wind had passed though, it could be the debris settling down..Some of the Martian dust devils have been seen to be hundreds of feet high.

Space

Originally posted by spacedoubt
Meteor_of_war,

It's going to be hard to ever be 100%.
But I appreciate you not "blowing off" my idea here, no pun intended..LOL

We should probably look into the components that make up the entire heat shield assembly. And remember, in all of NASA's spacecraft, weight is one of the key factors in determining wether a component gets to fly or not.

I could imagine some things getting pretty crunched on impact. And that it's possible that some things came apart in layers. It may not have taken much wind to keep something with the lightness similar to mylar (not actually mylar, it would have melted) aloft.

If the pic was snapped JUST AFTER a wind had passed though, it could be the debris settling down..Some of the Martian dust devils have been seen to be hundreds of feet high.

Space

This is the most plausible conventional explanation I've seen/read yet.

However, we also must keep in mind, as has been mentioned earlier in the post, that the object is absent from the right-camera which shows the same time stamp (though accurate only to the second).

To my knowledge, we are still awaiting some independent verification of the aforementioned sequential shutter release of the left & right cameras. BTW, thx, Kode, for the leads -- as you mentioned, Google didn't readily turn up anything, and I don't have the time to dig deeper right now...

does any one have a link to the video contient yet? im very interested to see it

Here is a little more evidence to support my man-made debris idea.

This is a beautiful color image of the heat shield.

Opp Heat shield

IT has been deformed by the impact, and is nearly inside out.
So this thermal "blanket" is what you mostly see. I think this may be the source of the anomaly.

You can also see a few pieces from this, lying on the ground..one at the lower right of the pic. And a few smaller pieces in the left hand regions.

You can also see what may be a meteorite in the background, just above the shield, but thats Another thread.

Cheers sdrumrummer, i haven�t had much time either probably won�t until the weekend.

spacedoubt that�s an interesting theory about the debris, and if it were debris then it would have to be very light [which i gathered it is] as i remember hearing, that because of the low gravity on mars the winds, even the dust devils, are not very strong, so i heard, im not saying that�s fact.

I was wondering could anyone determine the size and distance of the object [probably a lot to ask, im dreadful at maths]?

WOW we have a rover on MARS.

PLease let me know what NASA site I can follow this adventure.

I took the original earlier and ran it thru my image proggy.

I could see a trail... but that pic above me leaves me curious...

I may be wrong, but i don't think it could be debris. The little black dot is just too perfect, clear, and also i assume there should be more dots, not just one.

is there a way the we can get anything done about this, mabye email Nase and say what this is, or what is there offical explanation about it, mabye show it to the local news, get it some publicity, let there be an outcry?

Originally posted by Thug69
Yeah and it looked like it crashed or something Source

[edit on 14-1-2005 by Thug69]

It was just confirmed today that it was indeed a meteorite sitting out there.

Source1
Source2

As for the UFO, this was posted today on INSIGHT:

NASA email from Curt Niebur
From : Curt Niebur
Sent : Wednesday, January 19, 2005
To : Peter Arvo
Subject : Fwd: Mars Opportunity images - Question

Mr. Arvo,

Your message below was forwarded to me for response.

The anomaly you spotted appears to be a speck of dust that was temporarily located on or just in front of the left Navcam. It is not present in the right Navcam frame collected at about the same time, and is not present in images taken by either the left or right Navcam a couple of minutes before and after. Mars is a pretty dusty and windy place. I would imagine that the wind blew a speck of dust onto the lens and then subsequently blew it off. We see the same thing happening to the solar array: it gets dusty and produces less power, but a dust devil sweeps by every now and then and blows the dust off, allowing the rover to get more power.

Thank you for your interest in the mission!

Curt Niebur
---------------

external image

There was a second anomaly to and that looks cigar shaped. But if NASA say its dust, it must be dust. Nice picture though. The original anomaly appeared to have depth, but at a second look it could well be the effect of the pixels that gave it that depth. The probability of NASA admitting it was anything else is low anyhow.

[edit on 20-1-2005 by kode]

Originally posted by kode

The probability of NASA admitting it was anything else is low anyhow.

That's exactly what i feared when i first posted this thread. I knew that whether or not it was truly an unexplainable UFO, NASA was going to just explain it away to the public as some natural occurance like dust in front of the camera lens anyway. Oh well.

The second anomaly is much less interesting to me, nice picture of the sun on the Mars horizon though.

The fact that NASA blacked it out is suspicious.....

I think the object is mud flying off the tires. Yes it's mud case closed. I have some pics of me riding my 4 wheeler that look like that.

I think its dust or an insect perhaps, more likely mud as guy above said.
Theirs water there tho look at it, its saturated.



[edit on 21-1-2005 by lizzardsamok]

Bush on the pic:

"I have good knowledge from the CIA that this is indeed Saddams weapons of Mass Destruction, and that he sent them into space and they will fire at earth, i will need a budget of 102 trillion dollars to stop this and complete control of the country, this may take 20 years so i think i look it over myself just to be safe"

Sry i got bored.

[edit on 1/27/2005 by TKainZero]