What is this curious cloud on Mars?

my money is on that cool device from total recall :p

Originally posted by elevenaugust An amateur astronomer in West Chester, Penn. took a picture of a curious Martian cloud several nights ago Also, it moves with the planet (ruling out dust motes on the sensor) and seems to rise over the limb.

He's lying its a lens flare or camera artifact, thats what it always is, they're absolutely everywhere when something interesting pops up, this is interesting so therefore artifact/flare,

Star & Flag for you OP absolutely incredible,

Eruption of sorts possibly even an impact? imagine if it was and the rover was close enough to view

reply to post by elevenaugust


ROFL ... if you think that is a photo of "mars" I have some seaside property in Arizona to sell you.

THERE ARE NO PLANETS, just the sun, moon, earth, and stars.

Look again at that photo...it looks like a smooth orange or old tennis ball with some goo on it.


Welcome to truth with a capital T:

Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

When the word of God (the King James 1611 Bible---which is perfect and never wrong) tells you the whole world is deceived, then yes, the whole world is deceived.

Turn to Jesus.....today could be your last day....

reply to post by DissentFromDayOne


I'm sorry, but why are you even posting in a thread about planets if you don't believe in them?

You can actually hire out some telescopes online, might be worth using one so you can see with your own eyes, then will you believe?

*pulls out hair

Some news from the Yahoo group observers:

I think you have made a few rather astute comments regarding the feature seen on the limb of Mars recently. My thinking coincides with comments made by Christpohe Pellier, Richard McKim and others who have mentioned high altitude clouds as an explanation.

The MARCI weather map for March 12-18 has been posted and while it does not include March 20th, the date of Wayne's image, the map does cover the date of Marc DELCROIX’s image of March 12. I don’t see any indication of unusual dust or cloud activity in the March 12-18 map so I think that would tend to rule out the possible but highly unlikely scenarios of major impacts with their attendant dust plumes, major volcanic eruptions or some of the other interesting but fanciful explanations.

We know that the Olympus Mons orographic cloud should be at an altitude of 20 km at this season (Ls 87 degrees) and this cloud is not seen to project beyond or above the limb/terminator as far as I am aware. The
clouds within the equatorial cloud belt (ECB) may start out at low elevation on the morning side of the planet but rise to higher altitudes during the afternoon. As sunlight warms the surface, the escaping IR radiation warms
the CO2 atmosphere which raises the altitude of the water ice condensation layer. However, I think the ECB usually rises up to an altitude of only 10-20 km. So, to go one step further than the high altitude clouds already
mentioned my guess would be that they are mesospheric clouds which are at an altitude of 40-80 km.

More specifically, considering the proximity of the clouds to the terminator I would suggest they are similar to noctilucent clouds in Earth's atmosphere. One of my meteorology text books defines noctilucent clouds as "luminous night clouds". Since as Roger points out below, if this feature is high altitude clouds, they are not projecting above the actual limb of the planet but are high enough to be illuminated by sunlight, are seen beyond the terminator but against the night side of the surface, so are viewed in maximum contrast. I have only read a half dozen papers on mesospheric clouds so my knowledge is decidedly weak in this area as opposed to the lower altitude cloud types we usually see.

One of these papers (McConnochie et al, 2010) mentions that they could only identify two examples where an overlay of THEMIS-VIS images of mesospheric clouds could be matched up with a similar pattern of clouds as seen in the MOC daily global maps by Wang & Ingersoll so it may not be surprising that I did not see anything unusual in the MARCI maps. Dust, water ice and CO2 ice aerosols have all been observed in the martian mesosphere.
There does not appear to be an excess of dust in the MARCI images and the McConnochie paper states, "the mass of condensate is at least four times greater than the maximum amount of water vapor that can be contained in an atmospheric column, the condensate is most likely CO2 ice". I always assumed (apparently wrongly so) that the optical depth of martian mesospheric clouds would be considerably less (more tenuous) than lower altitude water ice clouds and that we would in all likelihood not be able to see high altitude CO2 ice clouds in ground based imagery. At least in some cases "particle sizes and optical depths also happen to be comparable to those of lower atmosphere water ice clouds"

(McConnochie 2010). I assume this last statement is referring to the ECB clouds as the volcano induced orographic clouds often appear much thicker with higher optical depth as compared to the ECB. Two types of mesospheric cloud forms seem to dominate, cumulonimbus and cirrus. The cumulonimbus clouds may at times have a clumpy structure which may indicate convective action. The cirrus clouds are by far the more numerous and may appear as filamentary structures sometimes organized in consecutive waves.

Certainly there are a few questionable aspects to the concept of this feature being mesospheric clouds, my own bias in thinking we can't see these things for one. Also, I have no idea if CO2 ice clouds should be visible in
all three primary RGB filtered images.
Cloud formation high up in the atmosphere can be induced by gravity waves but I have not researched the idea enough to know if this would be a preferred location for a quasi-stationary cloud. Is this feature moving in longitude and/or latitude?

To MIR, can you provide a comment on this feature we have been seeing? I would love to hear a more informed opinion even if to find my speculation is oh so wrong. BTW, thanks so much for sending the link to the Ashima web site. Love those maps!

McConnochie et al, THEMIS-VIS observations of clouds in the martian mesosphere: Altitudes, wind speeds, and decameter-scale morphology, Icarus 210 (2010) 545-565

Thanks,
Gary Rosenbaum

With Tim McConnochie's THEMIS/VIS obs, we used the presence of the mesospheric clouds to get the cloud height from parallax. If any one wants to get hold of the paper, it's on the www.ashimaresearch.com webite under publications (also checkout Ai Inada's paper there for more cool, high-res THEMIS VIS images and analysis). Actually, based on the stuff from this email list I've scheduled (more acurately Phil Christensen and his great team at ASU have scheduled) some THEMIS VIS imagery over the area where it looked like the limb feature was back on the 21/22nd. I know it's very unlikely to still be there, but figured we'd be remiss in not looking as quickly as we could.

MARCI is likely to have seen the limb feature in their full data (since the camera is effectively limb-to-limb) but it's a question of whether they process and release that stuff. Prior MARCI imaging has seen mesospheric clouds. I also need to contact the MCS team, they've seen some awesome thermal "arches" in data where the thermal IR array is pushed along ahead or behind the spacecraft and the effective rising and setting of the clouds show up as opacity in channels that should only see gas - they were very cool as we saw them with MCS very quickly after we got in to orbit. These are up at the 80km ish height, so we assume we're seeing the same thing in the THEMIS, MCS, MARCI (and Pathfinder) data. There's a link to a 2011 conference abstract by David Kass from the MCS team here showing the thermal IR "arches":

www-mars.lmd.jussieu.fr/paris2011/abstracts/kass2_paris2011.pdf

My guess is that this probably was a major mesospheric cloud being caught in sunlight where the sun had rise at the cloud but not on the underlying ground. This was seen at the Mars Pathfinder site where these clouds were seen in about an hour before sunrise:
www.newscientist.com...

That said, unless I get t see the MARCI images (will eventually when they get PDS released) and either the MCS data (which I'll try to check next week) or THEMIS (which probably won't show anything a week later), anything is on the table. Great thing about Mars is it keeps throwing us great, cool stuff.

Mark

___________________________
Mark Richardson, Ashima Research
www.ashimaresearch.com

So, seems like their best guess for now is a mesospheric cloud.

reply to post by wutz4tom

Originally posted by wutz4tom

Equally interesting is the fact that it wasnt until the first astromer spoke up,(or got the okay to??)..Only then did others start to come forward...

Everything has to have a 'first'. You can't just skip straight to the second.

Well Mars has a history of volcanism, so it could be a volcano.

I know it's obviously distant and grainy, but the plume looks fairly uniform in it's doughnut-looking shape to my eyes ?

With a thin atmosphere there is less wind and a volcanic eruption may stay roughly circular as it rises, but would it rise so far above the atmosphere ?

No wonder the marsheads are abuzz, thanks for a great post

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by masqua

 

Take a look at this Hubble image. The left limb of Mars in the May 17 1997 image.
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

Whatever it is, it's similar.

No because the "Ice Clouds" have a structure to them suggesting they're under the influence of the atmosphere winds and such sculpting the shape, this is more of a blob suggesting it happened fast and hard whithout much influence to the dust cloud structure, if that makes sense?, its just a blob a solid blob,


I'm throwing every penny i have of an impact or explosion/eruption or sorts thats no cloud

And for you conspiracy theorists... could a HMO Be coursing this eruption? stretching and pulling on mars heating its interior up?.. ohhhhh spooky

reply to post by WarriorOfTheLight


Why would we not see a HMO if there was one? Behind the Sun?

I read the other day about a Planet lurking right outside the Solar System but that would not affect Mars, or would it?

I have no idea what the image could be but If I had to guess I would guess volcanic activity.

Its the first time I see someone who doesn't believe in "planets" ... from now on I dont believe in clouds, I cant touch them, therefore HOLOGRAMS. Pretty interesting pictures, i would go with volcano.

Originally posted by Qumulys
reply to post by DissentFromDayOne

 

I'm sorry, but why are you even posting in a thread about planets if you don't believe in them?

You can actually hire out some telescopes online, might be worth using one so you can see with your own eyes, then will you believe?

*pulls out hair

Don't.... he'll only tear his blasphemous eyes out.. i wonder if he knows the Vatican own most of the telescopes on earth to, i bet there ignoring it to,

Originally posted by FraternitasSaturni

Jumpin in to add fuel to the fire -

From the OP:

I found a strange feature over Acidalia (top left of the animation below)

From Wikipedia:

Acidalia Planitia is a plain on Mars. It is located between the Tharsis volcanic province and Arabia Terra to the north of Valles Marineris, centered at 46.7°N 338.0°E. The plain contains the famous Cydonia region at the contact with the heavily cratered highland terrain.

Dunn-dun-dunnnnnh!!




...

Also, interesting potential for a more serious answer? (also from Wikipedia):

It has been hypothesized by J.E.Brandenburg from Orbital Technologies Corp. that a large natural nuclear reactor in the northern Mare Acidalium, near the large, shallow depression north of Acidalia Colles (similar to Oklo on Earth) underwent catastrophic meltdown.

Originally posted by DissentFromDayOne
reply to post by elevenaugust

 

ROFL ... if you think that is a photo of "mars" I have some seaside property in Arizona to sell you.

THERE ARE NO PLANETS, just the sun, moon, earth, and stars.

Look again at that photo...it looks like a smooth orange or old tennis ball with some goo on it.


Welcome to truth with a capital T:

Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

When the word of God (the King James 1611 Bible---which is perfect and never wrong) tells you the whole world is deceived, then yes, the whole world is deceived.

Turn to Jesus.....today could be your last day....

This is the most EPIC post I have ever read on ATS. I don't know if you are just trolling, or unfathomably ignorant - but either way: bravo. *golf clap*

It is clearly a Martian "SOS" :-)

I'm gonna say shopped'

Originally posted by MamaJ
reply to post by WarriorOfTheLight

 

Why would we not see a HMO if there was one? Behind the Sun?

I read the other day about a Planet lurking right outside the Solar System but that would not affect Mars, or would it?

I have no idea what the image could be but If I had to guess I would guess volcanic activity.

Umm i don't know tbh with you, i was just playing on the idea for fun really, my understanding is pretty much how Jupiter's Moon Europa has a squishing effect on it... it has oceans under the ice sheets because of this effect due to the orbit creating heat in the core and volcanic activity along the plates, where these vents come into contact with the ice and melt it etc etc, much like lake Vladivostok in Antarctica, its basically like holding a ball in your hand and squishing it to heat the core/object up, i'm sure you know anyway

So i was basically playing on the idea this HMO, is "supposed" to be in our solar system, and all this talk of earth going though this gravity trough and trying to link the EQ's and strange noises all that good stuff, well mars would be closer to this HMO, and under more effect therefore popping it like an egg, hence the plume

Oh how Terral03 will have a field day with this, i suspect hes going to say something like this to

reply to post by elevenaugust


Im new here so if i posted in wrong spot sorry.. But the meteor strike is most lkly but what if it is another object such asa moon and he caught it at just the right angel .

Originally posted by WanDash
It is clearly a Martian "SOS" :-)

Hmm, Certainly a possibility




Heres a thought... ... ...









Maybe the rover hit a martian IED ?

Meteor strike is the simplest and most likely cause..

I think Occam and four out of five dentists would agree...