A "Martian Flower"! Curiosity Sol 132!

This amazing, extremely unusually-looking translucent object on martian surface is the second one detected by the Rover Curiosity. (What a lucky guy... )
The Albedo (or Reflectivity of Sun Light) of this object is very high, and its translucent appearance, the irregular conformation (like pistils) and the "texture" of its wider areas is smooth, and seem that it is ground attached.
This is the SECOND TRANSLUCENT ANOMALY detected by Curiosity in Gale Crater.....
mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

Looks like the rover sneezed

Wonder what it is? will the rover use it's equipment to find out?

reply to post by Arken


My immediate thoughts were that it looks remarkably similar to polystyrene packing foam.



But it's probably just.........

1. A glitch
2. Part of the rover.
3. Something that fell out of the guinea pig.
4. Something from the studio.
5. Part of a weather balloon.
6. Swamp gas.
7. Optical illusion.
8. Reflection of Venus.
9. Part of a Chinese lantern.
10. Pareidolia.

ANYTHING except what it looks like...........Martian polystyrene.

S&F

It also casts an almost triangular shadow that is longer than the shadow of the rock above it on the LHS.

Whatever it is, it protrudes past the rock face quite substantially.

Hmmm........curiouser and curiouser

Whatever it is it looks embedded in the rock.....maybe a crystal type thing....

Flower? My first thought was crystal. Could be a life-form. It looks sort of squishy.

Could it be this?
www.nasa.gov...

Many of these fine sand grains are angular pieces of crystalline minerals

Looks like something geological, not biological.

Don't know why we're expecting a monotone bland landscape given that even on earth in the most mundane boring places you can find things that stand out as odd, but are completely normal.

Doesn't have to be a plant, or even a martian in hibernation. Could just be a quartz rock..

No no no no! You have it all wrong!! It is the ring I lost years ago. I wondered where it had got to!!!

Seriously though and joking apart, having looked at this photo it is probably as someone said earlier some sort of rock feature. Secretly I hope it is a fossil of some sort but that would be pushing it....

Hope they dig and see what is there!

looks like part way between quartz and opal, or at least quartz with that kinda embedded flakey surface appearance

Its a funny thing, that just because it's on Mars, people seem to loose all logic Me too.

However, when I take a step back and give it some logic, things look a bit clearer.

First google search sheds a bit of light on the possibilities, when you you look at earth bound geology.

Here's a clicky.

www.google.co.uk... ih=1074

reply to post by Sublimecraft

It reminded me of some kind of beach shell or a pearl..let's see,

1. it's a fossilized remains of a bit of onion when martians had their own mickeyds.
2. it's a glass bead order that somehow made it into space..now that's lost luggage. Make a square pendant
out of it and bids would go out of this world !!!!

hummmm..wonder how far it goes underneath the surface.

Originally posted by winofiend
Could just be a quartz rock..

That's what it looks like to me, a quartz rock embedded on a sedimentary rock, like sandstone.

Originally posted by Arken
This amazing, extremely unusually-looking translucent object on martian surface is the second one detected by the Rover Curiosity. (What a lucky guy...

)
The Albedo (or Reflectivity of Sun Light) of this object is very high, and its translucent appearance, the irregular conformation (like pistils) and the "texture" of its wider areas is smooth, and seem that it is ground attached.
This is the SECOND TRANSLUCENT ANOMALY detected by Curiosity in Gale Crater.....
mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

edit on 29-12-2012 by Arken because: (no reason given)

Looks like some sort of mineral inclusion reminiscent of the "rotini" photo. Would be cool if it were a fossil of something, but who knows?

If you google underground orchid you will see similar images. The orchid was only discovered recently anyway. It was in the news last year or so. If such a thing can grow underground and bloom at the surface, and is just recently being discovered on the Earth, perhaps this is one on Mars?

I'm not saying it is, but it does resemble a Prawn Cracker...

Oooooo - looks similar to opal or mother of pearl. However, would go from some variation of quartz. Tell Rover to ship it to me - I'll try lapping it! Will soon enough know if it's a flower...

Originally posted by ArMaP
That's what it looks like to me, a quartz rock embedded on a sedimentary rock, like sandstone.

Makes sense, something coming out of Mars, fell or burned, heated the sand or soil and turned it into piece of glass or something.