Strange Objects On Mars!! What Are They?

Take a look at the two different pics here acquired by Opportunity. Notice the two prominent ‘objects’ which have been enlarged for a better view.
I personally feel these are some kind of photographic glitches. Does anyone here know of any official NASA explanation of these images? I can’t seem to find them anywhere. But it does seem strange that these pics from the official NASA web site have NO explanation.


Right Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 107 of Opportunity's
mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 14:23:59 Mars local solar time,
camera commanded to use Filter 1 (436 nm). NASA/JPL/Cornell
NASA/JPL Source1. and NASA/JPL Source 2
Discoverer: JP Skipper

If these were actually artificial objects, they would have been either airbrushed or the pics would not have seen the light of day. But why is there no NASA explanation for these anomalies?

I looked at a closeup of both pictures. If these objects were photo anomalies, they would be, in my mind, on two different parts of the photos - not focused at the same strange formation.

I also don't think they're anomalies, because there is part of what looks like the rock formation in both photos that extends over the white area. It's like no photo anomaly I've ever seen...

It looks more like someone just took an eraser in a photo editing program and just carefully erased what was in there.

The first photo conditions are under that photo as,

Right Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 107 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 14:23:59 Mars local solar time, camera commanded to use Filter 1 (436 nm)

The second photo, taken on Sol 123 of Opportunity's mission at 10:50:24 Mars local solar time to the same location was commanded to use Filter 2 (754 nm). I have no idea what that means as far as lighting/coloring, so if anyone can enlighten us it would be appreciated.

How would the filter affect the appearance of water bursting out of the ground? Or heated gas bursting out of the ground?

To be honest, both white objects have the appearance of water bursting out of the ground, but they're so white - pure white, it's hard to achieve that kind of absence of color in a photo like this without tampering. And when you zoom in, these objects seem somewhat square edged, pixelated, that photo tampering seems a good possibility...

They're cool photos nonetheless. Thanks a lot!

[edit on 10-12-2006 by OnTheDeck]

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What i find interesting are the dark lines in the soil. At first you think you're looking at the shadow of the white object, but on second glance, it appears to be a black substance that has not only cropped up around the base of the white stuff, but has the appearance of being trenched out to the place where it finally came to rest. like a crashed meteor or spacecraft. perhaps some other country sent a probe of their own to check out mars.

Originally posted by OnTheDeck
To be honest, both white objects have the appearance of water bursting out of the ground, but they're so white - pure white, it's hard to achieve that kind of absence of color in a photo like this without tampering. And when you zoom in, these objects seem somewhat square edged, pixelated, that photo tampering seems a good possibility...

IMO, the pixelation could be the result of the GIF compression used. As far as being pure white (FFFFFF), it may also be the by-product of the GIF compression.

In order to understand this, you would have to know at least the basics of GIF.

An uncompressed image format will use 16, 24, or 32 bits to describe the individual pixel color. That is millions of colors.

In GIF, the most used is only 256 colors, using either a set color palette, or a palette determined by the most prominent colors used in the picture. Either way, there are far less colors in a GIF. This could result in both the squared pixel look, as well as the pure white pixels.

At least that is how I have come to understand such things.

Otherwise truly amazing pictures.

Looks almost like a geyser(sp?), but there are no flows from the eruption. And as pointed out, the soil seems to have been displaced. So, on the othe hand I think it may be more likely to be a solid object, that had been propelled into the soil.

All I can say is, wow!

Simply incredible.

[edit on 12/10/2006 by Mechanic 32]

[edit on 12/10/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Originally posted by undo
What i find interesting are the dark lines in the soil. At first you think you're looking at the shadow of the white object, but on second glance, it appears to be a black substance that has not only cropped up around the base of the white stuff, but has the appearance of being trenched out to the place where it finally came to rest. like a crashed meteor or spacecraft. perhaps some other country sent a probe of their own to check out mars.

I think a probe impacting would leave alot more mark than that...

But I agree, the soil is interesting since this is obviously not just a error in transmission or the picture. There is something there that has disturbed the ground.

I think that those photos, or other photos of the same kind, have appeared here on ATS before.

In that case, the white stuff was the heat shield from the probe reflecting the Sun light. That same effect can be seen on some photos in Google Earth.

I will try to find the first thread.


Edit: I found the thread, it was this one.

I do not know if it is the same object, I did not even saw if it was the same rover, but this was the thread I was thinking of.

[edit on 10/12/2006 by ArMaP]

Eh, only space junk.

Debris, etc.

Whatever else you may want to call it.

Ah, interesting pictures. I feel that the interesting matter is in the fact that these images appear to have been manipulated.

The white objects appear to be, as another poster has already pointed out, taken out of the image by way of a simple eraser tool.

Though this then begs the question: why such a blatant manip?

Oh well, thats my 22,222 cents.

Over the years, I have found that NASA lets out a few teasers. Not everyone in NASA is doing a complete coverup. Maybe that is their way of getting us ready for disclosure.
I DO believe we will see disclosure soon.

I might have come up with a reasonable solution, now I am no expert in these things so first, don't go yelling at me if I am wrong. Okay, I looked at tese images carefully, and they reminded me of other images I once saw:Nasa Opportunity Mission
Look at the first 8 images, the first 4 are from the landing paracheut, the 4 after are marks it made when landing (probably!) Now go down to ''Sub-Frame EDR'' and look at the pictures of the same paracheuts but further away, they look somewhat like the ones posted on here. The reflection is the sun, no doubt, and the black lines ARE soil displacement. (According to me) Well, untill further pictures or evidence, for me, this case is busted.

-Jimmy-

Originally posted by Jimmy910130
I might have come up with a reasonable solution, now I am no expert in these things so first, don't go yelling at me if I am wrong. Okay, I looked at tese images carefully, and they reminded me of other images I once saw:Nasa Opportunity Mission
Look at the first 8 images, the first 4 are from the landing paracheut, the 4 after are marks it made when landing (probably!) Now go down to ''Sub-Frame EDR'' and look at the pictures of the same paracheuts but further away, they look somewhat like the ones posted on here. The reflection is the sun, no doubt, and the black lines ARE soil displacement. (According to me) Well, untill further pictures or evidence, for me, this case is busted.

-Jimmy-

Yep, you're right.
Take particular note of this (there are half a dozen other shots of the same picture with varying degrees of shine):
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Its the same shape, the tossed up dirt appear to be part of the debris that turned black instead of whiteout for some reason and the other black spots matches exactly.

When I look at the full pic of the nasa jpl source 2 it almost looks as if the foreground is the shore and you can see small whitecaps rippling in. The object in question looks like it's floating along and gets hung up on some rocks just off shore.

Amazing what your mind can see in a picture.

It does look like a crop eraser was used though.

Ok , so we have yet another claim of “NASA manipulation “ ………

Please look at the archive

I say this every time , but does anyone ever listen ?

Now please note the first 6 frames of SOL123 ,

That is simply a “ hot pixel “ in the CCD bleeding across others in the same row

That is why the lines are always vertical or horizontal , they are never @ an angle

See how the extent of the bleed changes from shot to shot ? such hot pixels are quite common .

The real mystery is why laymen get so dammed over excited by them ?

It is a glitch in the system ………. Move along , nothing to see

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
Ok , so we have yet another claim of “NASA manipulation “ ………

Please look at the archive

I say this every time , but does anyone ever listen ?

Now please note the first 6 frames of SOL123 ,

That is simply a “ hot pixel “ in the CCD bleeding across others in the same row

That is why the lines are always vertical or horizontal , they are never @ an angle

See how the extent of the bleed changes from shot to shot ? such hot pixels are quite common .

The real mystery is why laymen get so dammed over excited by them ?

It is a glitch in the system ………. Move along , nothing to see

Makes sense to me!