Mars Pictures: NASA's Most Extraordinary Images EVER (PHOTOS)

Fantastic pictures. Out of interest, are these the actual color or do they take B&W images and color them manually?

Love those ones of the "trees", its a pretty cool illusion, fabulous images though. The one that has me puzzled as to how it was formed is the 6th one from the end, titled -

"Weather Movie, Mars South Polar Region, March-April 2009"

Can any budding geologists explain how that formed with such perfectly straight and even sized segments?

Or is it made up of a series of images and that's what is causing it? I'm assuming its a series of images where they took at regular intervals to get a full view of the south pole without having to position the HiRise satellite directly over it.

It just dawned on me that if they did move the HiRise camera directly over the south pole, some of it would be dark so they would have to take a series of images! My brain is slow to start up this morning!!


Edit/ Unless they have a massive flash of course!!

[edit on 24-3-2010 by fedupofitall]

Hate to say it guys but Phage is right. It's just dark streaks on top of light hills. Take another look and you might see it. Took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at too. But alas he's correct. It's just stains on the hill tops guys.... And yes I mean in the original photos. Well his too actually.

reply to post by Phage


Yup that makes sense. If you look at the picture you provided, at the top center of the photo you can see downward flowing "trees". They are coming down off what looks like a peak of the dune or hill.

Awesome pics nonetheless.


I want more. Keep em coming NASA.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by beebs

 

The dark streaks are slides of dark material on top of light material.

There is a vast region of sand dunes at high northern latitudes on Mars. In the winter, a layer of carbon dioxide ice covers the dunes, and in the spring as the sun warms the ice it evaporates. This is a very active process, and sand dislodged from the crests of the dunes cascades down, forming dark streaks.

[edit on 3/24/2010 by Phage]

Thanks Phage. I still have questions though...

So this carbon dioxide ice is dark colored? Or is just the 'carbon'?

When they say 'melt' what does that mean for carbon dioxide ice? Is the grey colored patches the 'ice'?

Also, I am curious as to the range/mileage/topography of the area - its really hard to tell from the pics. I assume they are saying the black streaks are like carbon avalanches on top of sand.

Why does the melted 'carbon dioxide ice' not seep into the sand? Or when it melts, maybe the water seeping into the sand, leaving a black avalanche residue of carbon?

Maybe water is not involved at all...

Is this relevant at all?:

In its solid state, carbon dioxide is commonly called dry ice.

wiki - CO2

reply to post by beebs

The dark material is sand but it is important to note (once again) that this is not a "true color" image. It is a false color image which "stretches" the color differences so that features like this can be more easily observed.

They don't say "melt", they say "evaporate". When frozen CO2 warms up it turns directly into CO2 gas. The process is called sublimation.

To experiment with this, next time you have a piece of dry ice to play with try this: put a quarter on top of it and you'll see the quarter start vibrating, it might even start jumping around a bit as the CO2 gas under it builds up. Put a little pressure on the quarter with your finger and it will start to hum...really.

So what is happening on Mars is that a layer of frozen CO2 is warmed by sunlight. The gas inside and under the layer is trapped and wants to get out. The escaping CO2 has enough pressure to move stuff around quite a bit and in the process gets the sand under it sliding down the slope. If you were standing there (oh, I wish!), I bet you'd hear some really strange sounds.

Some people don't like these "mundane" explanations but I find them fascinating. Mars is a very strange place. Strange enough without having to invent trees out of its amazing geological processes.

[edit on 3/24/2010 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


Ah thanks that makes much more sense now.

I did not notice that I had substituted 'melt' for 'evaporate', thanks for clarifying that.

I agree, tree or no tree, Mars is absolutely fascinating.

These pictures are so intriguing, I can't imagine anymore my previous notion of mars being a desert wasteland. I mean it might be a desert wasteland in some parts, but a damn interesting desert wasteland.

Any idea about those pockets of dark splotches? Are they just 'dents' in the surface that the wind skips over, with a build up of darker sand?

Also, thanks for reiterating that they are false color images, which I'm sure adds a good measure of awe to them.

reply to post by h1satsu

Photos from HiRISE have been published weekly (with only some six or seven omissions) since December 2006, and some parts are really orange.

Edited to change "weakly" to "weekly".

[edit on 24/3/2010 by ArMaP]

reply to post by beebs

I know what you mean. When the first images from Viking showed up I was disappointed.

But now, with what we've gotten from the rovers and what we're getting from the orbiters it clear that Mars really is a whole world full of a huge range of amazing things. It's amazing how similar some of those things are to what we find on Earth and even more amazing in the differences.

I think the dark splotches are an example of another weird martian phenomenon, a variation on the theme: CO2 geysers

reply to post by Agent_USA_Supporter


If those things are trees, where are their shadows?

We can see the shadows of the dunes and not the shadows of the "trees", don't you find that a little strange?

apod.nasa.gov...

maybe it could be this ? sorry if its been posted i havent opened all links

Simply amazing. Thanks for posting.

reply to post by solarstorm


Well you simply seriously misunderstand what you are looking at. I know this is some kind of 'conspiracy site', but try to focus on real conspiracies, because there is not one here, or there, so to speak.

Originally posted by amazing
What the heck are those tree things? They look like trees but...are they just rocks sticking up like that? How weird! That's the craziest thing I've ever seen. Send a rover up there now!!!!!! I want a closer look!

It is brine flows, you just see them in a different perspective. Some are just simple mineral flows.

In other instances photographs were taken around the polar CO2 ice caps, and when the Martian winter came to thaw, some outlining areas of the 'ice' would cause some surface sublimation, which actually looks like geysers, like in Yellowstone. A temporary phenomena happening in a lesser way on our own moon, only Mars has more of an atmosphere to help float these gases in its tenuous 'atmosphere' longer than our moon does.

Also most of these kinds of 'photographs' are spectrometer light signatures assigned a color for scientific analysis purposes. Because in real life color we can't see these kinds of things.