[X] My Assistant

[Harkeppler]

The Artifact

On Sol 50 Spirit got several pictures and especially:

2N130812340EFF1000P1901R0M1.jpg
2N130812340EFF1000P1901L0M1.jpg

Here, we can see and bright, shiny object like a metallic pin.

Some studies shows that this pin could be fallen off the backshield sailing over the region shown here after releasing the lander. NASA did not comment that interesting event.

The Anaglyph was made from the upper mentioned frames after removing the pixel bleeding around "the object".

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Bill Harris]

Not wanting to carry on the OT discussion, but Tom is right, posters that threaten the integrity of the forum require radical policy. As far back as 10 years ago we saw where the Usenet newsgroups were destroyed by a flood of undisciplined users, and in a current example, another Mars forum is "an asylum that has been taken over by the inmates" and now has a terrible S:N ratio. Ignoring trolls is the best procedure and making sure that this forum is "search engine friendly" is another. Keyword obscuration and watching our language is another. The "C" word, mentioning Ho@gl@nd is another, my mention of the word d00bie might not help.

But... back on topic-- it is amazing how much debris is around on Mars. I imagine that in a few hundred years there wil be a lively E B A Y trade going in martian @rtifacts. NASA @rtifacts, that is.

--Bill



PS-- good philosophy, Doug.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

To date - despite >1.6 million thread views - no one has started posting a verbose analysis of JPG noise.  Doug

Errrrr I did here

[djellison]

No - I mean the sort of analysis that takes JPG noise and infers is something else It's the staple diet of the hoaglanderati.

Doug

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Not wanting to carry on the OT discussion, but Tom is right, posters that threaten the integrity of the forum require radical policy.  As far back as 10 years ago we saw where the Usenet newsgroups were destroyed by a flood of undisciplined users, and in a current example, another Mars forum is "an asylum that has been taken over by the inmates" and now has a terrible S:N ratio. 

I was also a "victim" of the forum you are speaking (I do not tell the name, but the ancients here will know). The problem with such guies is that it is them who explain us that we are mad because we see a rock in the place where they see a toaster or what else. So this is really "an asylum that has been taken over by the inmates". On usenet, I once searched "torture" to find anti-torture activists or something like that, I found only... sadomasochist forums!!!! This is clearly not serious.

So I apreciate this forum which is kept clean of such garbage, and where also people keep polite even when they disagree. Everybody exposes his arguments in turn, and the discutions stops where it should stop, or continue with other questions.

But we must still consider the possibility of unexplained or controversial phenomenon and be free of discussing on them, so long as we keep free of mad interpretation and denial of facts. Simply the garbabe makes things much more difficult. I apreciated the discutions such as the one which went onIntelligent Design it arouse several interesting acute questions, while keeping pleasant to involve in.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

I was intrigued from the beginning by this shiny object. I must confess that, at the beginning of the Spirit adventure, things were new and much more uncertain that today, so that it would be a part of the spacecraft was not the obvious reply. What made my opinion was:
-The object was not covered with dust, like everything else on the image
-It appeared very obviously on the images. No doubt that geologists and other scientists examined all the images pixel per pixel, and surely noticed it.
-It was very close of Spirit, it would be no cost to see it closer
-it was roughly half-way on a straight line between the lander and the heat shield.
-The NASA people said nothing (and did not censored it) as an unimportant thing. (some days sooner there was explanations about similar artifacts in Eagle crater, fibers from the airbag and a piece of adhesive tape called "the bunny".

So I quickly guessed that it was some part of the spaceship, but I would like very much if somebody knowledgeable could confirm it.

[djellison]

We all know where you mean by the other place, but to be fair, as the 'out there' discussions go, it's probably the most sensible of them. A few utter loonies, but a few people who have atypical theories yet present them in a reasonable way.

Problem is - you cant do that sort of discussion at the same time as more mainstream discussions - the two are mutually exclusive. I spent far too long learning that.

Doug

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

We all know where you mean by the other place, but to be fair, as the 'out there' discussions go, it's probably the most sensible of them. A few utter loonies, but a few people who have atypical theories yet present them in a reasonable way.

Problem is - you cant do that sort of discussion at the same time as more mainstream discussions - the two are mutually exclusive. I spent far too long learning that.

Doug

That depend what we understand by "atypical". For instance speaking of NDE or wondering if a God would be at the origin of the Big Bang is not really accepted by mainstream scientists today. But we can still discuss this in a reasonable (and peaceful) way. When a guy who see a toaster where there is a rock posts it 50 times in all the threads and tells us that it is US who are insane, the discussion becomes unmanageable. And it gets really insane and very unpleasant when the moderator does not see any problem in this and let things like they are. It is the reason why I switched off this forum to come here. I have some regrets, though, as they was still some interesting persons and discutions going on.

[mike]

The very forum about which I suspect you are speaking is quite clearly a revenue-generating site for the owner, and I am quite sure that the owner actively encourages such endless conversations so that he can get more ad revenue. I can respect someone who honestly thinks that some rocks are vertebrae, but when that person insults those who disagree and reposts over and over and over and over and over it becomes laughable. I fail to see how any 'moderator' would want to see such 'discussions'.

[vikingmars]

...
Well, Well, Well...
And what about the "metal pin" and other MER jettisonned artifacts ?
Have you seen other ones around (other than the ones mentioned above on posts #1 and 8 and other than the backshell and heatshield of course) ?
Was any similar search done around Opportunity ?

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

...    
Well, Well, Well...
And what about the "metal pin" and other MER jettisonned artifacts ?
Have you seen other ones around (other than the ones mentioned above on posts #1 and 8 and other than the backshell and heatshield of course) ?
Was any similar search done around Opportunity ?

AS far as I know, the complete list of artifacts seen around the landers is:

-Spirit parachute and backshell (identified beyond any doubt, although there are two white spots on the image which could be the backshell)
-Spirit heat shield (identified beyond any doubt)
-Oppy parachute and backshield (identified beyond any doubt)
-Oppy heat shield (identified beyond any doubt and received a close visit)
-The pin near Spirit we speak in this thread (likely identification, no official comment)
-The "bunny" near Oppy (good official identification as a piece of adhesive)
-Fibers in the microscopic images of Oppy (good official identification as fibers of the airbags)
-Other isolated white pixels near the pin (no official comments, could be stones or other pins)
-tiny craters and black circles in sand at 2km south Oppy (no official comments, a long thread in this forumdiscussing if they are caused by falls from the spaceship, meteorites or other)



Should not be added to this list, various white spots or smears (sometimes black) in many images, very likely caused by cosmic radiations hitting the CCD crystal, or sometimes smears caused by bright spots, which can confuse unacknowledged peoples into thinking there is "something" on the image or floating in the sky.


I have some doubt, but the "pin", although photographied by both cameras (it is not a cosmic ray) seems to have moved from one day to the other (close examination of related photographies needed, not alway possible for amateurs because there is no data about their orientation). If it moved, so it cannot be a pin, but rather a gold foil of the spaceship. But could such a thing fly with wind on Mars?

[djellison]

Oh - bits of foil can and do flap about on mars - infact one of the L234567 sequences taken of the Heatshield shows a bit of foil flapping about

Doug

[elakdawalla]

I think that my favorite "artifacts" seen on Mars from the rovers has to be the big springy things near Opportunity's heat shield (highlighted in the attached). There is something so "Wile E. Coyote" about those things -- I chuckle every time I see them.

--Emily

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[mike]

The clearly regular winding pattern of the springs is also in stark contrast to everything else we've seen so far, the rocks and dunes obviously, but also including the 'bunny' (torn), the heat shield (crumpled), the parachutes (deflated and covered with sand)..

[Nix]

funny. I remember first seeing them
I think it was a navcam shot, from a distance, and I went, "what's that?"

Nico

[Bill Harris]

There is something so "Wile E. Coyote" about those things...

And also with much of the MER hardware; I fully expect to see "Acme" stamped on the airbags. Can you imagine a video of Oppy bouncing in to Eagle crater, with "Mel Blanc" sound effects?

--Bill