The sol 588 and 589 "strange bright lights" [sic], Using the power of UMSF for good |
The sol 588 and 589 "strange bright lights" [sic], Using the power of UMSF for good |
Apr 9 2014, 07:26 AM
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#31
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1083 Joined: 19-February 05 From: Close to Meudon Observatory in France Member No.: 172 |
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Apr 9 2014, 07:39 AM
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#32
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Member Group: Members Posts: 282 Joined: 18-June 04 Member No.: 84 |
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Apr 9 2014, 09:21 AM
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#33
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Member Group: Members Posts: 234 Joined: 8-May 05 Member No.: 381 |
Something that shiny makes me think of iron-nickel meteorites, which can be essentially pure metal. We already know there are meteorites on Mars. If it isn't too old, it
would not have oxidized the surface yet (which would take much longer on Mars than Earth). |
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Apr 9 2014, 09:38 AM
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#34
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1619 Joined: 12-February 06 From: Bergerac - FR Member No.: 678 |
I can hardly think it's a reflexion from a distant object. The parallax between the two Navcam is too close to have a very bright spot in one, an none in the other.
Let me explain : On Earth, when you are looking to a city in sunlight, sometimes there is a specular reflexion coming from a window or a large panel of bright metal. This reflexion don't disappear if you just moving less than a meter. Or the object that is reflecting the sun have to be a few centimeters large, with a very plane surface (typically : a mirror). I doubt that on Mars such a rock exist : very plane and very reflective in the same time. They can be flat, but not as flat as mirror. Because the surface aspect is certainly not a perfect plane, the light beam could not be so tight. And just because of that, if it was actually a reflexion from a rock, it should have been saw by the TWO camera, not one. For me it's just a cosmic ray hit, maliciously place by coincidence on a particularly place, but it's just cosmic rays. -------------------- |
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Apr 9 2014, 09:43 AM
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#35
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
They're shiny [iron meteorites] but rarely have perfectly flat faces. I'd prefer very large single crystals, possibly feldspar, in the unlikely event that these are real landscape features.
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Apr 9 2014, 09:48 AM
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#36
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Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
It's baaack...
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/nru4.jpg -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
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Apr 9 2014, 11:25 AM
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#37
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1465 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Columbus OH USA Member No.: 13 |
Some basic geometry of the situation using SPICE:
Raw image: NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_ Map view time of shot: sol 589 03:08:07 P.M. LMST (2014 APR 03 10:00:03 UTC) et = 449791270 NRB boresight direction (azimuth, elevation): 298.81° -16.86° Direction of bright pixels: 286.06° 0.67° Sun position: 300.33° 31.79° So the sun position relative to the line from the camera to the bright pixels is 14.27° northward and 31.12° up. Kind of interesting (coincidence?) that the pixels are within a degree of horizontal. EDIT: Also, if it is the same object in both images, here's my attempt at triangulation: -------------------- |
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Apr 9 2014, 01:12 PM
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#38
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2346 Joined: 7-December 12 Member No.: 6780 |
Do the two lines of sight intersect in 3d space?
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Apr 9 2014, 01:25 PM
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#39
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2173 Joined: 28-December 04 From: Florida, USA Member No.: 132 |
It seems that the intersection of those two of those lines is in mid air above the bowl of that crater.
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Apr 9 2014, 01:41 PM
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#40
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
That triangulation matches, by my estimation, the tall, thin, bright, shiny feature seen in these Mastcam images a week earlier.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...325E01_DXXX.jpg http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...044E01_DXXX.jpg It will also be in this image once down linked at full res http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multime..._DXXX&s=590 |
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Apr 9 2014, 01:59 PM
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#41
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Member Group: Members Posts: 699 Joined: 3-December 04 From: Boulder, Colorado, USA Member No.: 117 |
Tall and thin, indeed. Bright and shiny? Not so sure. It looks to me like an rock of unusual shape but ordinary color and brightness, that just happens to have a vertical face oriented to catch the light in that shot.
John |
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Apr 9 2014, 02:02 PM
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#42
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 4246 Joined: 17-January 05 Member No.: 152 |
It's baaack... http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/nru4.jpg Hah! At least the Beacon didn't appear and disappear like... like... you know it's coming... a cosmic ray! |
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Apr 9 2014, 02:21 PM
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#43
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Member Group: Members Posts: 111 Joined: 14-March 05 From: Vastitas Borealis Member No.: 193 |
After individually rotating and resizing each of those R navcam images, cropping the pair, enlarging 1.5 x, vertically stretching 2 x, and sharpening a bit for good measure, I think I can discern the ridge at 150 m (late edit: probably farther off, 200 m or so) distance in both images as an arched outline at the center. This comparison also works as a crude cross-eyed pair. The bright spots do not seem to be located at or near the ridge, instead being unrelated to it and to each other as well. Don't know how much this helps though.
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Apr 9 2014, 03:08 PM
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#44
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
I'm still having a hard time thinking of the sol 589 one as anything but a cosmic ray hit; it extends several pixels above the horizon, onto the distant hills.
It did occur to me while awake last night (as these things do) that you could make a singularly bright vertical rock face by exposing the planar surface of a gypsum vein. Still, I would expect more than one such feature to show up, and I would expect it to be visible to both eyes, and it should not have that vertical extension. So I just don't like it. -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Apr 9 2014, 03:55 PM
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#45
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Member Group: Members Posts: 507 Joined: 10-September 08 Member No.: 4338 |
If the vein was inside a narrow crack between two rocks, then a glint from it would only be visible within a very narrow viewing angle.
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