[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

Oh my - they'll go nuts for this one...

[akuo]

A bit of repeating here. It's most probably a cosmic ray hit once again.

Most often we see cosmic rays as straight bright lines on the images taken by rovers. The actual CCD chip can also change the direction of the charged particle (cosmic ray) resulting in a squigly figure on the image. I think this is a likely explanation for the figure.

I'll add an image that I took with an astronomical CCD camera. It shows a cosmic ray hit on the top right corner. The line isnt totally straight, showing that the ray can be deflected. The object in the image is the galaxy Messier 66.

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[ilbasso]

What would be fun would be to combine the flying saucer pic creatively with one of the new dust devil shots (or movies) to show a flying saucer scooting along just above the surface and kicking up dust as it goes...

[edstrick]

Cosmic ray hits don't necessarily just pass through a CCD in a straight line, leaving electrical charge behind as they ionize atoms they pass through or by. That is the simplest case, with the length of the line determined mainly by the angle of incidence of the cosmic ray on the CCD.

The cosmic ray can hit a nucleus in the target, either within the CCD's active layer, or next to it, or elswhere in the camera. This will create one or more extra tracks, either from a recoiling atomic nucleus or from spallation pieces of a broken nucleus.

The *most likely* interpretation of the odd feature in the image that started this thread is that it's due to a cosmic ray hit on a nucleus near the CCD's active charge trapping layer <don't know the correct term> and we see the track of the cosmic ray, the nucleus, and maybe an alpha particle ejected from the nucleus.

[ElkGroveDan]

I believe we should call it the Ferric Entity.  It's obviously an iron-based life form upset over the way we have been driving over and grinding it's hematite eggs that it laid on the other side of the planet.

I'll believe that when I see the dust devil tracks spell out "NO KILL I"...



-the other Doug

Y'all should also check out the Star Trek Encyclopedia on the Crystalline Entity. This thing is a dead ringer, it's just a ways off. Unfortunately unless the rovers can muster up a graviton beam, they're done-for.

http://www.neutralzone.de/database/SpaceLi...llineEntity.htm

[Bob Shaw]

Speaking of conspiracies, I'm sure you're all aware of the 2001 Jupiter encounter image which we were not supposed to see?

Now, about the centre of the dark hemisphere on Iapetus...

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[mike]

We haven't found an obelisk on the Moon yet.

[Bill Harris]

FWIW, here is a much enlarged view of the "thingamabob".

I dunno what it is, although a cosmic ray track sounds plausible. As a young Mad Scientist, I made a Cloud Chamber, and this track favors it.

--Bill

[ElkGroveDan]

Speaking of conspiracies, I'm sure you're all aware of the 2001 Jupiter encounter image which we were not supposed to see?

Now, about the centre of the dark hemisphere on Iapetus...

'It's full of stars!"

[mike]

I have no idea what the arrow thing is, but it sure does look funky. I wouldn't mind landing on Mars and seeing a few arrow things, as long as they didn't try to tear me apart or seize control of my ship or become rabid and attack my family or send me into a crazy time warp which leads me to accidentally kill a butterfly which irreversibly changes the future forever OH NO EVERYTHING IS GOING TO EXPLODE

[dvandorn]

I have no idea what the arrow thing is, but it sure does look funky.  I wouldn't mind landing on Mars and seeing a few arrow things, as long as they didn't try to tear me apart or seize control of my ship or become rabid and attack my family or send me into a crazy time warp which leads me to accidentally kill a butterfly which irreversibly changes the future forever OH NO EVERYTHING IS GOING TO EXPLODE

I never thought I'd ever say this to anyone, but... maybe, just maybe, you ought to lay off the science fiction for a little while...?



-the other Doug