Arabia Terra: Cave? or just Shadow?

reply to post by ArMaP


Hello ArMaP,
Thanks for the info, I swear I searched the words: arabia terra, cave, entrance, opening, shadow, anomaly...etc and nothing came up. Either I missed it or they were removed. Do you remember to what conclusions these thread came to?

Thanks for the anaglyph tip as I didnt see it on my own, pretty cool stuff.

I also agree that without an image from the ground everything stays a speculation, at least on my part. At the moment I am trying to see if there were anymore images from maybe a different angle, as this would at least show me if it is a shadow or indeed an opening.


Thanks for your time, I will share what I find.
StringTh

reply to post by Illustronic


Another valid point. Anaglyphs do not show more information as they originate from the same picture. It does not add information but uses illusion, as our eyes are easily tricked. But cool stuff nevertheless. It feels like standing beside this place and the bigger the monitor/TV and the darker the room, the more real it feels like.

If your software is able to brighten an area without affecting the lights on the picture, then I would say that you might have found the solution to this problem. Can you see the rocks behind the shadow? But be aware that most of these softwares just turn black to grey and hence give you the feeling of brightening. At least the softwares I cam across in my life. Nevertheless an interesting theory.

Regarding the amazement of finding a cave, I have to say, to me caves are either being formed through nature causes or man-made (explosions, diggers...etc) and caves usually on earth were used from early humans and animals as shelters or protection. However this find could be just a natural cause and no1 ever used it. Not now or a million year ago. Or, it was formed naturally millions of years ago and used when Mars supported life....etc the possibilities are great as long it is not a shadow, as I keep repeating myself.



Thanks again.
StringTh

On a side note:

Just to make clear as to what my beliefs are, so no one starts to speculate. I believe in life elsewhere other than on earth. My main reason has always been EARTH itself. Earth is the best evidence that life exists beyond our tiny imaginations, just look how weird our own planet is. Truly amazing. And since we discovered recently that life can exist beyond what we thought is possible and in conditions impossible to us, then my theory of life beyond earth has only been strengthen.

However, I have a hard time to believe that we have been visited before or now, as you all know our discoveries are pretty poor, hard evidence wise. In theory or words these phenomena exist for thousands of years.

I believe that humans on earth are the most advanced in our solar system and if we find any proof of life on these planets surrounding us, then it stopped a long time ago. So I never search for active beings in our solar system, but always look for signs indicating an ancient civilization. That's why caves are very much interesting to me.

From what we know until now (absolutely nothing), we only can speculate that humans could be the most advanced or the least advanced civilization in the whole cosmos.

Keep searching, I know I will.
Thanks again for your time.
StringTh

reply to post by StringTh

But be aware that most of these softwares just turn black to grey and hence give you the feeling of brightening.

Not true, if there is information in the darks, the software will pull it up. Its just easy selective exposure enhancing, Can be done manually with the curves or levels, but the shadow brightness makes it easier, faster, with comprehensive control. If its solid black, nothing will come up. A lot depends on the source image quality, jpeg compression can lose that information, the raw tiff files retain the subtleties.

Originally posted by Illustronic
reply to post by StringTh

 

But be aware that most of these softwares just turn black to grey and hence give you the feeling of brightening.

Not true, if there is information in the darks, the software will pull it up. Its just easy selective exposure enhancing, Can be done manually with the curves or levels, but the shadow brightness makes it easier, faster, with comprehensive control. If its solid black, nothing will come up. A lot depends on the source image quality, jpeg compression can lose that information, the raw tiff files retain the subtleties.

edit on 7-2-2012 by Illustronic because: (no reason given)

Thanks for that. Never too late to learn. Is it then in your opinion just a shadow? If yes, what could be the source?

Thanks again.
StringTh

I have in general issues with hundreds of these shadows and some of them just are weird. I share one example with you all. Can anyone tell me where the source of this shadow is?

Google Mars

68°34'22.90"N 170°30'32.58"W



The light comes from South-West, and it is clear that this is a crater (small) I expect the 2 shadows inside the crater and just outside on the North-West, but what the hell is the roundish shadow in the middle? There are hundreds of these examples and I did not find any answers on my own. Anyone care to help?

Thanks again.
StringTh

Originally posted by StringTh

Here's why Google Mars is useless except for finding location coordinates.

What you have is a second generation compressed jpeg image, that is projected on to a terrain map as a third generation image, all but the most rudimentary information is lost in this process, plus keep in mind the image data is projected on a rolling surface, like projecting a slide show on to a cave wall.

Shadow information is lost and what we will observe is just crazy compression artifacts emerging from the bled darks.




See, that's not real. The rectangular grid is your first clue, that how jpeg compression processes the data. When pushed to ridiculous levels the 8x8 grid swath is apparent.

reply to post by StringTh
Nice find..

It's safe to say they did not expect there to be so many peering eyes on these images...If it's a shadow it appears to be the only one we see. Worth watching for sure.

reply to post by Illustronic


I see what you mean, but would that mean that most of the shadows in this particular picture are not real and just added through compression? So the real shadow is much smaller. Did I understand you right?

Originally posted by wutz4tom
reply to post by StringTh

 

Nice find..

It's safe to say they did not expect there to be so many peering eyes on these images...If it's a shadow it appears to be the only one we see. Worth watching for sure.

Thanks for your comment. This find of mine seems to be turning to a shadow, the more we look at it combined with the pictures compression. But I understand what you mean and agree 100% that IF they are hiding something they would not have thought that so many eyes will monitor them.

Keep searching and watching, I know I will.
StringTh

reply to post by StringTh


Its a shadow. Look at the mesa, then look at what your calling a cave entrance. There obviously a rock there casting a shadow...

What compells people to fill up the board witht his kind of crap, or even waste their time looking for caves and structures on the moon. Theyre aways nothing but landforms....

Originally posted by 8fl0z
reply to post by StringTh

 

Its a shadow. Look at the mesa, then look at what your calling a cave entrance. There obviously a rock there casting a shadow...

What compells people to fill up the board witht his kind of crap, or even waste their time looking for caves and structures on the moon. Theyre aways nothing but landforms....

And even if you are right, could you not have just mention it is a shadow and be done with it? Do you really need to insult other people to feel better and more clever? If so, be my guest. I can take much more than that and I am sure that you can insult much more than that too. So lets just stop here.

I appreciate your comment nevertheless and would like to thank you for wasting your precious time and commenting on my cheap issue/find.

OR you could have red the entire post with all the comments and conversations and find out that I mentioned from the beginning that this could be very well a shadow. Even my thread title suggests this, so you Sir do baffle me.

Wishing you calmness on your path.
StringTh

Originally posted by StringTh
reply to post by Illustronic

 

I see what you mean, but would that mean that most of the shadows in this particular picture are not real and just added through compression? So the real shadow is much smaller. Did I understand you right?

No, the information in the shadows is just lost through triple jpeg compression. The image you see on Google mars is a jpeg, of a jpeg mapped on a terrain.

I do this because it is fun, but it sort of works like this, only I'm using a fake altimeter terrain, I poked a couple of craters in, because I didn't get real data for this, and the image just doesn't do as good as the computer generated data does, so bare with it.

Our area of interest colorized image data.


The terrain mapping (altimeter raw data onto a terrain mesh).


Mesh form.



Color data projection onto the terrain mesh.


Colorized 3D terrain mesh.


Your overhead view of the merged data.



Google earth works the same way except for misses, bridges, and man made structures not entered into their terrain mesh.

Originally posted by StringTh

Originally posted by 8fl0z
reply to post by StringTh

 

Its a shadow. Look at the mesa, then look at what your calling a cave entrance. There obviously a rock there casting a shadow...

What compells people to fill up the board witht his kind of crap, or even waste their time looking for caves and structures on the moon. Theyre aways nothing but landforms....

And even if you are right, could you not have just mention it is a shadow and be done with it? Do you really need to insult other people to feel better and more clever? If so, be my guest. I can take much more than that and I am sure that you can insult much more than that too. So lets just stop here.

I appreciate your comment nevertheless and would like to thank you for wasting your precious time and commenting on my cheap issue/find.

OR you could have red the entire post with all the comments and conversations and find out that I mentioned from the beginning that this could be very well a shadow. Even my thread title suggests this, so you Sir do baffle me.

Wishing you calmness on your path.
StringTh

edit on 7-2-2012 by StringTh because: (no reason given)

I really wasnt insulting you, but okay. I was just merely stating that what you found was a shadow, and that it is VERY obvious, due to that mesa RIGHT next to your 'find', casting a huge shadow, in the same exact direction. Heck, you can even see the little rocky outcrop that casts the 'cave' shadow, and the detail of the terrain under the shadow...

Trust me, if you found a cave, that had an entrance on ground level like that, you would know.

Originally posted by StringTh
I have in general issues with hundreds of these shadows and some of them just are weird. I share one example with you all. Can anyone tell me where the source of this shadow is?

That doesn't look like a shadow to me, it looks like a deposit of that blueish sand that appears in some areas.

I will try to find other images of that area.

reply to post by Illustronic


Thank you so much for going through all this length to make me understand and learn as to what you mean. It seems to me that you are a very bright and gentle person. Thank you for that.

Just a last question, as I thought that JP2 are the next generation of JPGs and they are supposed to have solved the compression issue or reduced it to a minimum. The 900MB file is a JP2, does all of this apply to that one too?

Thanks again.
StringTh

That is an old Viking photo (photo 703B33). They were the best we had at the time, but by today's standards they are not good.

The same crater, photographed by the CTX camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:
B02_010241_2486_XN_68N170W, with the Sin shining from a different direction.

And from HiRISE, photo PSP_010241_2485.

Not a shadow.

Originally posted by StringTh
The 900MB file is a JP2, does all of this apply to that one too?

I haven't downloaded the image, so I cannot know, but the image itself should have some metadata telling what type of compression was used.

JP2 images can have lossless compression, so they do not suffer from the problems JPG suffers, but they also can have lossy compression like JPG.

reply to post by ArMaP


Thank you so much for clearing this up for me. I see what you mean and agree. Seems like shadows are playing tricks on me.

Apologies for all the confusion I may have caused. Too good to be true. However, I learned a lot from this thread thanks to people like yourselves.

Keep Searching, I know I will (I should really stop though)
Thanks for your time
StringTh

Originally posted by 8fl0z

Originally posted by StringTh

Originally posted by 8fl0z
reply to post by StringTh

 

Its a shadow. Look at the mesa, then look at what your calling a cave entrance. There obviously a rock there casting a shadow...

What compells people to fill up the board witht his kind of crap, or even waste their time looking for caves and structures on the moon. Theyre aways nothing but landforms....

And even if you are right, could you not have just mention it is a shadow and be done with it? Do you really need to insult other people to feel better and more clever? If so, be my guest. I can take much more than that and I am sure that you can insult much more than that too. So lets just stop here.

I appreciate your comment nevertheless and would like to thank you for wasting your precious time and commenting on my cheap issue/find.

OR you could have red the entire post with all the comments and conversations and find out that I mentioned from the beginning that this could be very well a shadow. Even my thread title suggests this, so you Sir do baffle me.

Wishing you calmness on your path.
StringTh

edit on 7-2-2012 by StringTh because: (no reason given)

I really wasnt insulting you, but okay. I was just merely stating that what you found was a shadow, and that it is VERY obvious, due to that mesa RIGHT next to your 'find', casting a huge shadow, in the same exact direction. Heck, you can even see the little rocky outcrop that casts the 'cave' shadow, and the detail of the terrain under the shadow...

Trust me, if you found a cave, that had an entrance on ground level like that, you would know.

No harm done and thanks for replying. I hope I had your eye-sight as I can see what you mean after mentioning, even though I am not 100% sure, it is good enough to go with that.

I know how you feel and I feel the same way. All this crap pix-elated, blurry shadows of rocks where people see alien bases are very annoying. I had this in my mind before starting this thread and look here, I've done almost the same. At least I did not say that this is a 100% proof that alien bases on Mars exist and that NASA is hiding something in plain sight. lmao

I honestly do not believe in any sort of advanced (as humans) beings within our Solar System, but always believed that some of these planets once supported life and maybe there are signs to be discovered. It's more an archeological passion than finding aliens.

The thirst for my quest comes from studying earth and its wonders. We truly are the most bizarre planet/life form in our Solar system or maybe beyond.


Thanking you sincerely for coming back and clearing it for us. Credits to you.
Best Wishes
StringTh