A Third and a double light source on the slopes of Mount Sharp. Curiosity Sol 603.

Does anyone else find it odd that the picture that was posted in another thread earlier this week was also from the right camera, but the left did not pick up the light source?

I am not saying that it definitively is something being wrong with the camera, or that it is a "cosmic ray", or anything else, but it just strikes me as odd that both of these threads involved the right camera, while the left didn't catch anything but the landscape. Any other theories as to what this could be out there?

a reply to: Deaf Alien

My guess was that it was Mars two moons because I honestly have no clue. What I do know is that if I can find no reasonable picture of a cosmic ray its because there arent any. I dont claim to know what it is. I just am not buying the cosmic ray angle because I cant even find proof of what a cosmic ray looks like to compare it with. Now if evidence arises to the contrary I am willing to accept it, but I'm not just believing its cosmic rays .

a reply to: rustyclutch

Phage has already provided pictures many times. I do not know why nobody would listen to him.

a reply to: Deaf Alien
Because he doesn't know what cosmic rays would look like on a digital image but he knows they wouldn't look like that? So those can't be cosmic rays because cosmic rays would look different but he doesn't know how?

a reply to: Phage

I'm still waiting on proof. You are showing me pictures with no words telling me what I am looking at. If these were pictures of cosmic rays they should come up as such when I search for cosmic rays. Show me pictures of cosmic rays not from Mars. Documented cosmic rays on a website that I can read up about them on. There should be numerous examples not just from Mars. Did we just discover them or something? I'm not saying the answer cant be something simple. Im just saying cosmic rays seem more like something you would expect to see in deep space than on a planet. And there are no pictures from anywhere else.

a reply to: Phage

The techniques to "capture" the cosmic rays

The Auger Observatory uses two main techniques to study these showers of particles from outer space .

The first is based on the detection of higher energy particles through their interaction with the water molecules of 1,600 detectors placed on an area of ​​3,000 square kilometers in the Pampas of Argentina. These detectors , placed at a regular distance from each other , forming a giant grid. They are made from cans filled with 12 tons of pure water and are completely autonomous , because powered by solar panels .

The water has the purpose of creating the absolute darkness inside of detectors. When particles originating from rainfall weather ( air shower ) created by cosmic-ray collisions with the molecules of the atmosphere, their electromagnetic field produces a flash of light known as Cherenkov , which can be detected through the tubes inside photosensitive posts tanks.

a reply to: Arken

Yeah as you have probably realized... Mars doesn't have magnetosphere as Earth do, which makes it difficult to detect cosmic rays on Earth... hence the techniques.

a reply to: Arken
We aren't talking about Cherenkov radiation in water. We are talking about what happens when cosmic rays strike the CCD of a digital camera.

Cosmic rays are high energy particles that continually bombard the Earth. Some cosmic rays are generated by the sun, while others originate from far outside of our solar system. The higher above sea level you are the more likely you are to see the effects of cosmic ray hits in your images. Cosmic ray hits on a CCD can appear as a bright cluster of pixels at a random location or as line of bright pixels at any angle depending on the path of the cosmic ray.

qsimaging.com...

a reply to: rustyclutch
Earth's surface is better protected from cosmic radiation that that of Mars. Mars has no magnetosphere. Mars has a very thin atmosphere.

I guess you think the people who know most about the instruments are lying?

Maki said that one percent of those hundreds of weekly images might include cosmic ray-induced bright spots. But the junked-up pixels normally don't cause much of a stir.

"You'll see cosmic rays every two or three days. Certainly at least once a week," Maki said. "The reason we see so many is because Mars's atmosphere is thinner: It doesn't block as much cosmic radiation as Earth's does."

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Wow. Two artifacts in the same frame? You don't usually see that too often. Maybe they should try putting a different kind of film in those Mars rover cameras! Wait. I have an even better idea. Stop sending rovers to a planet that is dead. Was dead. And will remain dead! Also, that whole "cosmic ray" thing. Is there something about Mars having NO MAGNETIC FIELD and the notion that we bought the cameras for these multi-billion dollar, hopped up, robot lawn mowers from the lowest bidder mean anything? And why is it, that after all these "rover" missions we're going to send more rovers, that do the exact same thing, take pictures and wipe they're robot butts with hundred dollar bills? Maybe the inhabitants of Mars are transparent, like our government or the quality of it's character! Mars rovers. Mars recon orbiters. Mars. Well, Mars does have one thing going for it. Water. If we can turn it into a gas station for an actual "Space Ship" hey, great news. We might even get some money back from all the cash we blew on USELESS MARS ROVER MISSIONS! NASA. Great engineers. Science guys as smart as a box of rocks! NASA, they're scorecard is totally unimpressive. Buld a space shuttle, so we can build an "international" space station, that we use for taking pictures and talking to third graders! I have a goal for NASA. Build a space ship. Not a rocket. Not a capsule. Not a probe. Not a satellite. A SPACE SHIP. One that's designed for Humans to use for tooling around the solar system. ANd buy some decent film for thos Mars rover cameras. And lose the Jesse Ventura pic !

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: rustyclutch
Earth's surface is better protected from cosmic radiation that that of Mars. Mars has no magnetosphere. Mars has a very thin atmosphere.

I guess you think the people who know most about the instruments are lying?

Maki said that one percent of those hundreds of weekly images might include cosmic ray-induced bright spots. But the junked-up pixels normally don't cause much of a stir.

"You'll see cosmic rays every two or three days. Certainly at least once a week," Maki said. "The reason we see so many is because Mars's atmosphere is thinner: It doesn't block as much cosmic radiation as Earth's does."

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Nice one Phage. Compared to Earth, and things that live here, Mars for all practical purposes DOESN'T have an atmosphere. And I find it kind of curious that "Maki" made no mention of the fact that Mars has no magnetosphere. If the Earth didn't have a magnetosphere we'd all be, well basically, living on Mars! Please, NASA please, build a space ship. For Human space flight. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! and name it the Arthur C Clark! Now that's what I would call a "space program" ! What's that you say NASA? What about a rover? Hey if it's cool and looks like the robot from "lost in space" and you can deploy it from the space ship? That's ok. Just make sure you put some decent film in the cameras !

Very likely to be cosmic rays. Here on Earth our magnetosphere deflects most of them, and the ones that actually get through interact with say nitorgen and oxygen atoms within our atmosphere and fall to Earth as Nuetrons and Muons (there are billions of these going through your body right now). I believe that some very rare interactions may even be the cause of spontaneous human combustion.

In outer space cosmic rays are very powerful. The image below is a magnified image of a Astronaughts helmet, the peaks you see are where cosmic rays have penetrated the helmet (they must've done something to the persons brain). Therefore, you can see how these rays could affect pixels in a photograph.

[img=http://s28.postimg.org/erry62vtl/helme.jpg]

The small, single pixel (the right-hand one) is a stuck pixel that has been cropping up intermittently for ages. It is a known problem.

Look, you can see it in precisely the same place at the top right of this picture if you view it full size too:

mars.jpl.nasa.gov...



As for the people talking about cosmic rays, there is a lot of confusion on here about what they are and how they are seen. They are not "visible", they do not produce visible light that the camera is recording. Cosmic rays hit the CCD, the sensor of the digital camera, and directly knock loads of electrons into a few pixels. The camera records light levels as the number of electrons in each pixel. so a bunch of extra electrons will show up as a bright light.

Do a Google Image search for "cosmic ray CCD" and you will see dozens of examples.

Posted about these recent lights at the Unmanned Spaceflight Forum, let's see what the experts have to say about it.

originally posted by: AzureSky
My guess would be stars, as they are hanging up in the sky. I would assume that you can still see stars from mars, one of those dots could be earth perhaps.

Interesting nonetheless

Well, if they are indeed stars, it kinda makes a mockery out of a lot of the answers in the thread where Curiosity managed to take an image of both the Earth and our Moon, and NO other stars in the image...

a reply to: Rob48

Do a Google Image search for "cosmic ray CCD" and you will see dozens of examples.

All at NIGHT or in the DARK. (well known phenomenon)

NONE in DAYLIGHT?

Notice how these new lights are in exactly the same relative position in both images from SOL568 and from SOL603?

Open both images, and alternate your view between them both...they don't move, although the brighter light fades out on the 568 image...nevertheless...not cosmic ray, not stars, but dust or debris on the lens or some other camera artifact is my thinking.

I'd have loved it to be 'something' else...but alas, it isn't.

a reply to: MysterX
I can guarantee they are not stars. For one thing, the photos are taken during daytime, at daytime exposure levels, so you will no more see stars than you would see stars in photos taken in the middle of the day on Earth.

For another thing, they are only visible through one camera. They are clearly camera artefacts, the question is, what is causing them. If they are cosmic rays, why so many on just the right camera in recent days, and none on the left? Three is still within the realms of coincidence, of course, but if we see a fourth any time soon that only affects the right camera, then I will certainly think something must be going on with that camera.

originally posted by: MysterX

originally posted by: AzureSky
My guess would be stars, as they are hanging up in the sky. I would assume that you can still see stars from mars, one of those dots could be earth perhaps.

Interesting nonetheless

Well, if they are indeed stars, it kinda makes a mockery out of a lot of the answers in the thread where Curiosity managed to take an image of both the Earth and our Moon, and NO other stars in the image...

They can't be stars, as the image was taken in daylight. Even at night, Curiosity has a hard time photographing stars as the camera wasn't build for this. But we do see cosmic strikes in Curiosity's night shots.

originally posted by: MysterX
Notice how these new lights are in exactly the same relative position in both images from SOL568 and from SOL603?

Open both images, and alternate your view between them both...they don't move, although the brighter light fades out on the 568 image...nevertheless...not cosmic ray, not stars, but dust or debris on the lens or some other camera artifact is my thinking.

I'd have loved it to be 'something' else...but alas, it isn't.

As I said, the smaller light is a stuck pixel that has been on lots of images. I linked another one above. The bigger light isn't in the same place as the 568 image, though - the 568 image had it over in the top left, not the top right.