In the past, unmannedspaceflight.com has provided a public service to debunk conspiracy claims by helping people locate and describe images related to the weird claim of the week. My favorite two examples of these were the "http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=4927" and the "http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=4277." In that spirit, I'm hereby providing links to images and other data related to this week's fun, originating with http://www.chron.com/news/strange-weird/article/NASA-photo-captures-strange-bright-light-coming-5382677.php, quoting a UFO enthusiast website. http://t.co/SD6JnjeobH, and http://t.co/RtHGtc5cy4.
Phil Plait http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/08/curiosity_photo_light_seen_on_mars_is_a_camera_artifact_not_a_real_one.html and I took one look at it and said "cosmic ray hit." Here's the picture, right Navcam from sol 589:
http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_
If you compare the image to the left eye taken at exactly the same moment, there is no bright pixel -- this is diagnostic of an event that affected only one camera, so is most likely a cosmic ray hit:
http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NLB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_
Another thing that tells you it's likely a cosmic ray hit and not a bleeding pixel from something bright is the fact that pixel bleeding on Navcams happens in the horizontal, not vertical direction. Just check any http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/image/00589/NRB_449782783EDR_F0301366SAPP07612M_.html, or http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/image/00593/NRB_450148782EDR_F0310216NCAM00264M_.html in which the sloping side of the RTG is overexposed and bleeding horizontally. By contrast, cosmic ray hits can be oriented in any direction, such as in http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/image/00113/NLA_407549277EDR_F0050432NCAM00538M_.html.
And I figured my debunking work was done, until someone pointed out to me that there's another right Navcam image, shot from a similar but not identical location, at the same time of day, pointed in roughly the same direction, that also contains a bright dot. Here's the picture, right Navcam from sol 588:
http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NRB_449700848EDR_F0301254NCAM00252M_
As with the sol 589 image, the bright dot is not in the Left Navcam frame taken simultaneously, although this time that fact is explained by the presence of a foreground butte blocking the field of view:
http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NLB_449700848EDR_F0301254NCAM00252M_
This dot is different from the other one. It is not extended vertically. It's just a dot, that overlaps more than one pixel. Still, I would be inclined to dismiss this as a cosmic ray hit (saturating pixels, in one eye and not the other) without extraordinary evidence to the contrary. There are interesting coincidences here that could lend themselves to an alternative explanation, such as a specular reflection from a bright object: both are on the horizon, seen in the same direction, at the same time of day. But there is another coincidence that has me skeptical: seen in right eye only of the Navcam. And the vertical extension of the bright pixel in the sol 589 image just doesn't make sense for a specular glint; that would extend horizontally, not vertically, while cosmic ray hits can make streaks in any direction. So I am still inclined toward cosmic ray hits and coincidence, but I'll admit to being less totally certain about that after seeing the sol 588 image than I was after seeing the sol 589 image alone. http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-explains-martian-flash-its-not-what-you-think-n74931:
Also, here are the visualizations from Joe Knapp's site of the viewsheds of the two images.
Sol 588:
http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/4-mars/2014/20140408_NRB_449700848EDR_F0301254NCAM00252M_map_truthan.jpghttp://
Sol 589:
http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/4-mars/2014/20140408_NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_map_truthan.jpg
Only thing I have to add: Many people here will remember, earlier in the mission, we had a whole discussion of sparkles that (I'm going to say now) probably were glints off rocks - because it seems like there were too many to be readily explained by bits of hardware laying around, and also we've seen a lot of polished, shiny rocks. I can't find the discussion at the moment. All of those glints appeared in both cameras, though (which is why we thought they might actually be interesting).
I noticed the 588 blip at the time since it appears to sit on the distant ridge and doesn't obviously look like a cosmic ray hit (unlike the 589 blip, as you point out Emily). The lack of lnav to confirm it as a cosmic ray at first disappointed me. But then I remembered that (MSL especially) overlaps the navcams considerably. So the neighbouring rnav shows the same region as the 588 blip:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00588/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_449700817EDR_F0301254NCAM00252M_.JPG
No surprise: no blip. My conclusion at the time: cosmic ray. I see nothing new here to change my mind.
My very crude take on triangulation from the two Navcam images - put me in a spot that I think is also visible in one of the Sol 580 MastCam mosaics.... perhaps the tall thin rock left of center, near the top, on that rock face, is the cause of the excitement.
Sol 580 MastCam
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00580/mcam/0580MR0024070490400044E01_DXXX.jpg
That area is also visible on Sol 572 in Navcam - and that same rock is just about visible.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00572/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_448279926EDR_F0300484NCAM00250M_.JPG
Here's another "glint" from the right navcam, on sol 589. Also in the top left corner of the image, somewhat on the apparent horizon. Note the camera is pointing in completely different direction. Left camera shows no glint.
http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NRB_449790644EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_
That glint is really nothing like the others in question - that really REALLY is a CR hit. It's nowhere near the local horizon. It's against the Gale crater wall some 25+km to the north.
How simultaneously are the navcam pairs taken? If there is even a small delay then one camera might miss a very small glint that was 'twinkling'. That seems unlikely but I can't think of any other way a real feature in the landscape could be missed by the other camera. It's surely too distant for the difference in viewing angle to come into play.
Well - we have one pair where the feature is clearly hidden behind a nearby hill. The other pair is more curious - it may very well be the exact same situation - more local topography occluding it in one eye. I believe it's near instantaneous - the have the same spacecraft clock time time to the second.
Here's a stretched, 200% zoom of the two 588 frames:
Depending on the smoothness of the surface, specular reflection is heavily dependent on the angle between the pixel and the surface normal of the object it's viewing. If the light reflected off the surface almost perfectly aligns with the camera, you will see the glint, otherwise you won't, even with a very small change in viewing angle between the two cameras.
It could be that one camera pixel or pixels is very closely aligned with the reflection angle, whereas the other camera is off slightly and little of the specular reflection travels to it comparatively. I'm not convinced that's it, as over several km the difference in viewing angle will be very small and would require a very very smooth surface. I'm not sure about the pixel bleeding that Emily is talking about either, I'll have to look into that. Just something to think about though.
I was absolutely 100% "It's a CR hit" when I saw them. I've done a complete 180. 589 could be a CR hit. 588 isn't. It hides behind a hill behind the two eyes. It also happens to triangulate well with the Sol 580 MastCam and 589 Navcam feature to a tall, thin shiny rock.
One 'gleam' of hope for resolving this (ha ha): The area of the Sol 589 Navcam image was covered by Mastcam-100 on sol 590; only the thumbnail is available on the website at the moment.
The Sol 588 observation ( visible in Right, not in Left ) is entirely consistent with an actual object being obscured by the perspective shift between the two eyes applied to the northern side of the nearby topography.
The Sol 589 observation does not have a similar topography to explain it's one-eye appearance (although a small rock on the nearby topography might explain it )
However, if one triangulates between the two observations, one finds a point on a small ridge line. That point is also visible in Sol 580 MastCam imagery that shows a tall, thing, bright rock at the exact same point ( see my first post on this thread )
This means either....
1) 2 CR hits happened to appear on two images on the same camera on two sols at different pixel locations that happens to be geometrically consistent with a tall thin bright rock see 8 sols earlier ( which is QUITE a coincidence )
2) It's an actual thing.
I'd expect M100/M35 and ChemCam imagery of the same spot to be acquired soon that should quite easily settle the matter. The object, if it's real, is approx 160 meters away.
Where would it be in the sol 593 late afternoon Navcams? Behind the butte?
Edit:
The rock I think we're seeing glinting is also visible in Sol 582 MastCam as well.
MR - Sol 582
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00582/mcam/0582MR0024340330400325E01_DXXX.jpg
MR - Sol 580
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00580/mcam/0580MR0024070490400044E01_DXXX.jpg
Boy, would I like to see less-JPEGgy versions of those images...
The 589 blip is very clearly a CR. Note that the bright pixels extend above the far outcrop and are set against the distant Gale rim - see the arrowed part here:
excellent sleuthing, especially on locating the candidate rock face! its still hard to see what exactly is the nature of that rock..? http://gettn-sirius-about-startrek.wikispaces.com/For+the+World+is+Hollow+and+I+Have+Touched+the+Sky
It still seems so unlikely for a glint showing up only in the Right eye, but not in the left eye that's just a few inches away yet does appear the previous day in a separate location, though the different shape of the glint is consistent with that, if there were to be two faces of the rock that happened to be configured perfectly for sending reflections to these two locations..
zoomed non-interp 400% shows it blends into image as if its being resolved through the lens.. http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/image/00588/NRB_449700848EDR_F0301254NCAM00252M_.html on left http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/image/00589/NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_.html on right
What percentage of the cruise stage may have survived entry and dropped short of the "flown" EDL path? I'd expect any such parts to be small and well ablated, not visibly shiny, but this spot does seem to be in the possible strew field for that stage. I'm not willing to push this idea very hard--I lean towards the CR explanation as well, but Mars EDL being as untidy as it is...
The glint on sol 588 does not appear to be a CR !
Here is a straight forward bi-cubic spline 6x image from the original...
the bright spot is concentrated on a central pixel on a ridge ...
The wall of Gale is also in the image, anyone that can triangulate (from the original 588 Nav R B ) may get closer to the 'rock'
Is it ice?
The vertical, light-colored feature seen in the mastcam 580 image looks to me to be a good candidate for something like the well-known Mars gullies, caught in the act.
Consider:
It appears to be precisely vertical, and lighter in color than anything else in the frame, consistent with ice or flowing water.
It extends from the rim-edge of a portion of what appears to be the crater wall.
It appears to be in the same vicinity as something that seems to be producing unusually pronounced specular reflections.
It looks an awful lot like a waterfall or frozen waterfall, and we know that seasonal gullies are seen on Mars. Have any been seen at this latitude or in this vicinity?
It seems that the JPL folks are just saying specular reflection, at this point. That's consistent, and appropriate.
Is this (possible) thing anywhere near the planned traverse path? The mainstream media is going nuts about it; might be worth a side trip just to let the hot air out of the loonies.
No, it's not near the planned path, and no, it's not worth a side trip. It's either a cosmic ray hit, or something in RNav optics, or a shiny rock. None of those things would warrant taking Curiosity away from the planned path.
Agree scientifically, of course. Too bad, though; great opportunity to place some well-deserved egg on the right faces.
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).
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.
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.
It's baaack...
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/nru4.jpg
Some basic geometry of the situation using SPICE:
Raw image: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00589/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_.JPG
http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_
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.
Do the two lines of sight intersect in 3d space?
It seems that the intersection of those two of those lines is in mid air above the bowl of that crater.
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/msss/00582/mcam/0582MR0024340330400325E01_DXXX.jpg
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00580/mcam/0580MR0024070490400044E01_DXXX.jpg
It will also be in this image once down linked at full res
http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=0590MR0024830370400509I01_DXXX&s=590
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
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.
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.
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.
If the sun is 30 degrees above the horizon and the reflected ray is even with the horizon, wouldn't that imply that the reflecting surface/point is oriented 15 degrees from the horizon? I.e., relatively horizontal.
If it's just one surface, yes, but it if it's actually a reflexion it could also be a reflection of e.g. two planes in different angles.
[About possible reflecting surfaces on Mars] A cleavage of feldspar might cause plane reflecting surfaces, too.
[About the position estimate] A relative pointing error of 1° could move the intersection of the two lines in Joe's graphic to the hill in front. But after trying to estimate the error ellipse of Joe's cross bearing by using the parallax of the bright pixels relative to background rim features as a partly independent measurement, I got a distance of 176 m relative to the Sol 588 position; that's very close to the position in Joe's graphic. This may still be wrong, or there might have been two independent reflexions. Nevertheless, I'm now prefering coincidental CR hits as most likely, as well.
My triangulation could easily be 1 degree off. The direction of the boresight (center of image) is pretty reliable (as reliable as the SPICE kernel anyway) but to get the direction of the bright pixels I just counted pixels from the center assuming a uniform field of view of 45.33° and that the rover was level (which it fortunately was to within about a degree). So any lens distortion could throw it off too. It could be done more precisely if warranted, BUT how about this argument: if it was some kind of specular reflection that was so sensitive to direction that one NAVCAM saw it but the other didn't, and it was 176m away as Gerald figures above, then a 42 cm shift in baseline (0.13°) is the difference between seeing and not seeing. The sun for its part moves 0.13° in about 45 seconds. So then what are the odds that the thing would be seen twice on different sols from different positions? Pretty low right? Therefore by Ockham's Razor it's not a reflection.
The experience with Spirit was that meteor searches revealed only cosmic rays. Even things thought at first to be meteors couldn't be confirmed in the end to be anything but cosmic rays. And presumably a search would be done with the Navcams, for the wider field of view, so basically the same cameras. So it may not be useful, and certainly would be a low priority... except, as you say, in October, which is a special time.
Phil
I went looking through images hoping to find other "cosmic ray hits" and/or "hot pixels" or even perhaps any other anomalies that might be compared and contrasted with the "big glint".
I came up with this "hot pixel" at postion 934 horiz and 28 vertical in the right NAVCAM. It appears overly "bright" compared to its surroundings. The two frames were shot 31 seconds apart. This leads me to understand this as a defect in that pixel of the detector.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00593/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_450140205EDR_F0310216NCAM00263M_.JPG
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00593/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_450140236EDR_F0310216NCAM00263M_.JPG
this hot pixel appears in other shots as well. This is not at all like the "glint"; this is presented as contrasting information.
My short visual search of 100 or so NAVCAM images did not show any anomalies like the two observed "glints".
Heres a crosseye of the candidate rock images posted earlier to get better sense of contour, yep the bright side points to the right, but I still think its http://gettn-sirius-about-startrek.wikispaces.com/For+the+World+is+Hollow+and+I+Have+Touched+the+Sky theres even the pentagonal platform complete with steps at near right and some sort of little crucifix offering near lower left.
Looong time lurker un-cloaking to say thanks atomoid for that x-eyed. I turned it into a flicker GIF (not sure if this will work, first upload.)
Could it be gas eruption?
Dust diavol?
Impossible : it should have been saw by all the Navcam. And it's not the case.
If it's a "real" object, there are quite a couple of possibilities, besides veins, polished basaltic or sedimentary rocks, or crushed crystals.
The estimated location is close to an impact crater. So molten sandstone could be one more option; in some cases the melt forms http://geology.com/meteorites/images/libyan-desert-glass-2-750.jpg, which might have been polished by dust, and be able to reflect sunlight. The surface of such a polished glass could be close enough to horizontal to allow a direct reflection of sunlight to the camera. Due to different perspectives it may sometimes be hidden by rocks several meters in front of, even from slightly different angles, plausible at least for the Sol 588 NavCam pair.
I'd say, if the different position of the bright pixels can be related to the slightly different position of the sun and the rotation of the camera, this could influence the assessment - in either direction.
After subtracting the rotation of the camera the position of the bright pixels should follow the position of the sun. Since the images have been taken in the afternoon the motion should have been rather diagonal, not horizontal, as observed.
From this I'd almost rule out, that the same vent hole could have caused the two occurences of bright pixels.
This "strange bright light" event is now becoming a worldwide "affair" and I was called twice today by the French Press which is now aware of it through the Internet buzz...
The best way to solve this and stop the beginning of what is felt as new conspiration theories would be for the MSL team to have a quick drive at the rock if that's not too far away (I understand 1-2 days drive), have a quick look at it and resume the rovers operations.
Like many people involved in EPO, I guess, I'm now tired seeing good Mars science diverted with "non-science" theories
No way, there's going to be something weird in another picture next week.
The hype has nothing to do except die out because it is nothing exciting in reality. Maybe mineral, maybe camera, certainly wild goose chase.
Besides, it is away from the mountain... That is what the mission is here for.
I'm sure we're all feeling similarly anxious about the attention, and I wish the grounded excitement of real exploration were enough for the general media!
What anticitizen2 said. The robot is on Mars to do science, not to chase will-o'-the-wisps. And this website is for analyzing images, not advising rover drivers. In this thread, please let's stick to what we do well: image analysis.
If I were the NASA chap in charge of persuading the US govrnment to give me some more tax payers money then I would be wringing my hands with delight right now.
The tax payers fund this, the government allocate the money, the greater the interest the greater the demand to continue funding from the tax payer.
Be very greatful for any interest from the wider 'busy with their own lives' tax payer you can get!!
Being an Englishman I can tell you that I wish for UFOs' flying over The Houses Of Parliament every day!!
I hope this applies to your guideline, Emily. I fix old bellows cameras and make pinhole cameras and have Raleigh-tested my own mirror blank, so this is what I can offer on the light leak school of causes:
Light leaks always tend to be diffuse (raising the fog on the sensor) unless there is a point source projected directly onto the sensor's surface by a pinhole. The single-pixel nature of the spots is also problematic for the pinhole projection scenario--diffraction effects will broaden the beam to a diffuse disk, wherein the smaller the pinhole, the more the diffusion, even for a projected point source. (Pinhole photography is an artful balance between improving sharpness vs diminishing contrast.) Either way, deriving a saturated, cleanly single-pixel image by reason of a light leak seems improbable.
The more likely reasons for single bright pixels discussed so for are either cosmic ray hits or a point reflection that was imaged by the optics. And that comes down to which is more likely: for a cosmic ray to intercept the imaged horizon in each exposure, or for a glint to miss the same camera inches away at each exposure. Without more information, I don't think any option is provable. But light leaks are NOT on my table.
Just a stray thought because I've not seen it mentioned. The two 'bright lights' may have different explanations. One cosmic ray hitting close to a different interesting feature is not too much of a coincidence.
A NavCam image FOV is about 45°, and 1024 pixels wide; the sun has an apparent diameter of a little less than 0.4°, hence less than 11 pixels diameter in a NavCam image.
To visualize this, here http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00589/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_449782783EDR_F0301366SAPP07612M_.JPG annotated with an upper bound for the size of the sun (red disk):
Another example of a bright spot in NRB but not NLB, back on sol 568 (March 12th):
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00568/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_447920587EDR_F0291020NCAM00295M_.JPG http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NRB_447920587EDR_F0291020NCAM00295M_
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00568/opgs/edr/ncam/NLB_447920587EDR_F0291020NCAM00295M_.JPG http://curiosityrover.com/imgpoint.php?name=NLB_447920587EDR_F0291020NCAM00295M_
It's in the same approximate area of the frame as the present two examples, and also NRB only, pointing toward a camera issue?
a good article that pretty much puts this to rest
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/08/curiosity_photo_light_seen_on_mars_is_a_camera_artifact_not_a_real_one.html
Ha, he wrote that article after asking me about it, when I'd only seen the sol 589 one, and I assured him it was a cosmic ray. It was after I'd also seen the sol 588 one that I started this thread.
indeed, and to think I spent probably an hour fruitlessly combing through navcams (not saying that's wasted time though!), yes good catch.
on the flank of mt Sharp no less, definitely not the hypothesized rock of recent yore.. though im still convinced that represents the salvaged wreckage of the http://gettn-sirius-about-startrek.wikispaces.com/For+the+World+is+Hollow+and+I+Have+Touched+the+Sky.
Phil Plait's http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/08/curiosity_photo_light_seen_on_mars_is_a_camera_artifact_not_a_real_one.html linked another one 'over a rock' http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/image/00107/0107MR0682028000E1_DXXX.html at middle right as well.. definitely willow-the-wisp.. or a Lowly Photon.... recalling http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=7535&view=findpost&p=194762 from the glenelg days...
Brilliant work. Hats off!!
The bearing is to the east, a very different angle relative to the sun. A vent hole should be unlikely for this image.
Edit: Survey of the three (due to Joe's great job!) blips, magnified 4x:
Agreed. The nine-day wonder effect is extremely limited for anomalies. It's also qualitatively different than the blip of media interest that inevitably occurs for events such as planetary landings; the former is a 'gee whiz', the latter is an achievement. Different emotional sets.
Even more significantly, the latter influences decision-makers much more profoundly.
I don't undertand why there's so much attention on the media reaction. The facts will still be there when the froth settles. Does anyone have any more information on the camera-specific question. How do these rather small bright smudges appear on images and why only in one camera?
At the moment we can just persue a couple of hypotheses, and look, whether some of them run into a contradiction, to rule them out.
For the remaining hypotheses we could try to estimate probabilities to find the most likely, at the end.
If there is no unique most likely hypotheses, we may think about, whether distinguishing the remaining hypotheses is relevant for further decisions.
If the alternatives are a tiny light leak, occasional cr hits, or a reflecting pebble somewhere on a ridge similar to many other pebbles, this may turn out to be not really decision-relevant, and it may be resolved by future observations.
But if it could indicate technical issues, or a scientifically interesting location, it's worth to be narrowed down.
CR hits are always an option and hard to rule out definitively, but probabilities can be estimated; preference for a region in one camera may be purely statistical clustering, observation bias, or an effect of different shielding/hardening.
Reflecting pebbles could be identified, if present, by examining further images like e.g. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00595/mcam/0595MR0025090580400744E01_DXXX.jpg; thus far I couldn't find evidence for reflecting surfaces on the ridge, making me reducing the probability for the reflexion hypotheses, but an appropriate scenario can still be constructed, since inclined patches are present.
The light leak hypotheses lacks a scenario allowing for the observed effect, although lack of knowledge is not sufficient to rule out a hypotheses.
And there may be something we've failed to notice.
That's a small region of the JunoCam EFB17 image, just to show how similar cr and stray light smeared hot pixels (see M.Caplinger's post below) can look:
I was looking at post#25 from gerald and did a similar thing for the sol 588/589 image.
I put a copy of the image on top of itself and then changed the blend mode to Hard Mix and then Colour Burn, then zoomed in a few times.
I don't know if this helps but, here they are.
An example of a "real" bright object (4x magnified), which might be confused with a cr hit, if visible only on one single image:
It occurs in Sol 606 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00606/opgs/edr/ncam/NLB_451296365EDR_F0311256NCAM00273M_.JPG and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00606/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_451296365EDR_F0311256NCAM00273M_.JPG, therefore it's most likely real.
An effect, which seems to be related to the Sun, occurs in this Sol 606 HazCam pair: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00606/opgs/edr/fcam/FLB_451296076EDR_F0311256FHAZ00302M_.JPG, http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00606/opgs/edr/fcam/FRB_451296076EDR_F0311256FHAZ00302M_.JPG:
Gerald,
The first image you posted, I had a look and there appeared to be quite a few 'hot spots', I was wondering which one you were referencing.(I was looking at the NLB image)
Thanks.
It's near the red rectangle in this reduced version of the NLB:
Another data point to consider in the bright light phenomenon, the right-hand frame from this stereo pair from sol 593 has a meteor-like appearance.
It presents as diagonally oriented, tapered to the left, covering perhaps 15 x 10 pixels in the westerly sky and bears some resemblance to the picture that started this thread where the "light" was at ground level. How much time would separate these stereo frames?
LEFT - http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00593/opgs/edr/ncam/NLB_450136764EDR_F0310108NCAM00482M_.JPG
RIGHT - http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00593/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_450136764EDR_F0310108NCAM00482M_.JPG
That's a striking cosmic ray photo, one that will be handy for future debunkery needs.
More bright lights from Sol 624 (today):
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00624/opgs/edr/fcam/FLB_452897785EDR_F0311330FHAZ00338M_.JPG
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00624/opgs/edr/fcam/FRB_452897785EDR_F0311330FHAZ00338M_.JPG
Visible in left and right cameras this time, but in a slightly different spot. Here's a comparison:
http://i.imgur.com/Xyv93wX.gif at 09:07:15 UTC
http://i.imgur.com/Sq9YrA3.gif at around 05:30:00 UTC
http://i.imgur.com/5wBulvV.gif at 02:03:33 UTC <- this one looks very similar to todays
http://i.imgur.com/tCGbCLR.gif at 22:44:34 UTC
I haven't looked thoroughly enough to say if it is always there at the same time. Also, I'm not sure how to translate UTC into Gale Local
Huh, didn't realize that the sol 621 spot wan't seen consistently in both cameras (overlooked the import of Deimos' http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=7828&view=findpost&p=209535). So maybe that one was not a reflection after all, but a camera artifact related to the Sun, moving because the Sun moved during the long drilling process?
Not to draw this out much further (but people were wondering about this on the main thread for a page or so)
This might be a clue - after drilling on 621 when the arm force was removed and the rover tilted forward
http://i.imgur.com/hXFivqG.gif
Two minutes between images - there is some shadow lengthening, so how much of the light's change is attributable to camera movement and how much to sun movement?
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