MEX VMC - Back on, and online! Options

[ormstont]

Sorry for being a bit quiet - as you can probably see from the ESA website we're going full steam ahead on the blog for the Rosetta Steins flyby tomorrow. Daniel who maintains the VMC website is hoping to get the latest images up soon. In particular you should take a look at the ones from the 29th August - there's something really strange on those pictures. Seems to be large (~100km is my rough calculation) and very bright, casting a dark shadow on the planet and the shadow is detached from the object. Doesn't seem to be anything on the map there so I'm puzzled...ideas on a postcard?!

P.S. Thanks for the idea for the RSS feed - we're definitely thinking of implementing that as soon as we can so you can get reminders of new images available.

[Stu]

re your "mystery object"...

Perhaps...?

[ormstont]

Definitely hoping for Martians (then we'd have something to blame spacecraft anomalies on!) We're hoping to get the images up today...latest probably Monday - sorry to make you all wait!

[ormstont]

Ok...image gallery is online on the website, along with a couple of public submissions from UMSF members (more to come I'm sure!). We've got some more standard image galleries from August and September still to put online but these will come next week after things with Rosetta have calmed down.

Really interested to see what you make of this object!

[djellison]

That is unusual. At first I thought it might be a moon/shadow issue, but that close to the terminator the geometry is totally wrong. It's so close to the terminator, that can't be very tall.

It's a nice challenge - I like it.

[Paolo Amoroso]

In particular you should take a look at the ones from the 29th August - there's something really strange on those pictures. Seems to be large (~100km is my rough calculation) and very bright, casting a dark shadow on the planet and the shadow is detached from the object. Doesn't seem to be anything on the map there so I'm puzzled...ideas on a postcard?!

Any Phobos/Deimos solar eclipses at the time the images were taken? However, the images probably span a time interval a bit too long.


Paolo Amoroso

[Stu]

I may be wrong (probably am) but think this might be the area...



More than prepared to be proved totally wrong!

EDIT: hmmm, looking at other images in the new release batch I'm not so sure. Fun to try tho.

[remcook]

cool, looks like a volcano eruption it's not a cloud?

what's the artifact right above it in Stu's image (near the limb, the rectangle thing...looks like a a line of a few pixel copied several times.)

[ustrax]

I've been far away for so long that I've become a sceptic...

Sorry but to me it looks like an optical illusion...no shadow casted by the apparent object, it looks to me like the shadow is from an elevation on the ground and the supposed "object" is a crater, you can see by going through the images that the shine varies and if you turn a picture 90º you loose that impression of something hovering over Mars...

Hope I'm wrong...

[Stu]

How about a meteoroid impact that sent up a big dust cloud? Unlikely, I know, but wouldn't that be cool?

(This is where someone from MRO, Odyssey or MEx butts in and says "Well, actually, we did see something but we weren't going to say anything yet..." )

EDIT: An "optical illusion"? Okay, where's the REAL Ustrax? What have you done with him?!?!

[ustrax]

I'm here...
This is what I mean:


Looks to me that the brightness of the crater on the right and what I call crater on the left looks, going through the images, the same from one to the other...

But I may be taking too much Canydril...

[Paolo Amoroso]

[...] it looks to me like the shadow is from an elevation on the ground and the supposed "object" is a crater, you can see by going through the images that it's shine varies and if you turn a picture 90º you loose that impression of something hovering over Mars...

Isn't the area too far from the terminator to have such a prominent shadow?


Paolo Amoroso

[ustrax]

In this specific image it looks to me that the shadow is derived from elevations on the terrain to the left and the "object" has fainted in a considerable way.

[ormstont]

Just to put my two cents in, you're right that the "object" fades a lot towards the end of the observation. It could well be that we're seeing something like the face on Mars - just a combination of light and shadow that looks like something we want to see. Nonetheless there aren't any major features I can see on the Mars map that would give rise to such a large flare/shadow. In ustrax's plot the crater identified is (I believe from looking at the Celestia file) Copernicus.

Using Ian Musgrave's Registax techniques he describes here http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2008/08/w...-over-mars.html, combined with ugordon's colour processing script, I wonder if it's possible to clean up the image and see if we can place it more precisely on a map of Mars. Would be great to see what more it could teach us!

P.S. Top theories so far include trick of the light, cloud or (a long shot, but a cool one) an impact event plume...

[ustrax]

dear Ormstont, I am sorry to be a bit limited in terms of software for the moment but if that carter is indeed Copernicus then, looking at Google Mars, I see a bright patch to the right of the crater (marked) that could be the "culprit"...assuming that I am getting the right orientation and scale...