The Press and the Man on Mars Options

[SteveM]

I was just about to turn in, when I saw CNN displaying a photo of a rock formation that looked like a man. I checked here and no one had discussed it, which is a sign of real good sense. On GOOGLE news it was only in the Times (London) and the Sun.

I apologize for offending this group's sanity by bringing it up but if anyone knows where the image is from, could we get an estimate of the size of the "manlike" rock formation. My guess is about 10-30 cm high.

Steve M

[elakdawalla]

See http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/01...mb-mars-claims/

--Emily

[Astro0]

This is a maddening story and typical of poor journalism.
Here's the real story http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20080103a.html

Anyone with reasonable eyesight can see that this is two separate rocks. The 'head' a small dark rock in the background and a larger foreground rock, the shadows appearing as the underside of the 'arm' and 'body'. The gap between the small 'head' rock and the top of the 'body' rock gives the appearance of the top of the 'arm'.
This is all much more obvious in the 3D version of this same image.

As for size, I'd say that the rocks are little more than 3-5cm.

Sorry, even though I just replied, let's say no more about this, it is not worthy of UMSF time.
I'm angry about seeing these stories in the 'Times of London', 'The Sun' and now 'The Daily Mail'. I've already had a media query about it today

Astro0

[elakdawalla]

It's kind of like that whole "Chang'e image is fake" story. It's annoying that this story is getting press attention, but you can try to turn it to good by using it as an opportunity to do some education. Bet you most people don't know about the 3D versions of the images being available. Or that time elapses between the different color-filter images required to make the color version of the image. For that little man not to have color fringes around him, he must have been standing stock-still. These kinds of arguments won't convince conspiracy theorists, of course, but they will be educational to people who just hear about the story and come to you to ask you about it.

--Emily

[alan]

Previous sighting of the man
closeup

[angel1801]

Goes to show that the reporting standards of the mass media cannot always be trusted. Remember the mass media reports on such stories to sell papers and to get you watching their news broadcasts or visiting their websites.

Good people ask questions about every report delivered by the mass media.

But I fear it is already too late. I bet R1chard H0ag|and has already jumped upon this and will declare that feature is "artifical" and will blurb on about on it on his internet site.

[Shaka]

Whooops! Where did you get that?
That was one of my bad hair days.
Sorry. Totally OT for Mars.

[nprev]

Humph--typical meatbag vanity.

These guys all wish they could find a human made out of minerals, even if he was a shrimp; they'd be one step closer thereby in their squishy minds to achieving my manifest metallic perfection, further enhanced by extensive dolomite content...

[djellison]

We were reluctant to let this topic happen at UMSF - but over my morning tea ( Dan - what were you thinking! ) I figure we can so the same for this as we did for the 'puddles' with Burns Cliff.

Lets rip it apart.

Let's identify the location, the size, and give the media some facts.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_p1367.html ( top row )

Left http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...CP2415L7M1.HTML
Right http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...CP2415R1M1.HTML

Where's that parallax-to-range calculating webpage?

347 px in the left frame, 215 px in the right frame, and approx 13 x 28 pixels in total

Damn - http://copperas.com/merpx/ is broken

Doug

[akuo]

Are there pancam frames of the rock from different angles? It's small and far away, so this could be difficult to find.
If images from two different places could be co-registered into a 3D animation and this put on the youtube, it would be really good for the public.

[ustrax]

Bah...seen better in Spirit's good old climbing days...

[helvick]

Using Algorimancer's rangefinder utility ( http://www.clarkandersen.com/RangeFinder.htm ). I get a range of about 4.7m +-3cm to various points on the shape and a maximum extent (from the top left of the "head" to the bottom right of the "foot") of approximately 5.7cm.

The thread that prompted Algorimancer to step up and write this exceptionally brilliant utility is here.

[Juramike]

Perhaps instead of discrediting it we can sell it on eBay?

[Juramike]

ARRRGH!

Just as I was typing the response above on my laptop with CNN blaring in the background and thinking "nahhh, the media won't beat this to death" I heard John Roberts of CNN repeat the story and show the picture. (7:12 AM EDT)

*sigh*



[EDIT: Repeated 3 times on CNN in the last 30 min.]

[ustrax]

At least we won't to take one of this when we name that colony New Copenhagen...