Haunting images from Mars

Posted: Friday, April 13, 2007 7:59 PM by Alan Boyle

There's fresh imagery this week from NASA's robotic emissaries at Mars, including video of dust devils spinning through the Spirit rover's field of view and pictures of a scary-looking route down to the floor of the crater that the Opportunity rover is investigating. This comes in addition to the latest view of the Face on Mars, provided by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

All this cool imagery might ease some of the sting felt after last year's loss of Mars Global Surveyor - which resulted from a regrettable chain of events detailed today in a report from a NASA review board.

NASA / JPL

A mini-tornado known as a dust devil spins over the
Martian surface in this image from NASA's Spirit
rover. Click on the image to watch a video report.

The latest and greatest Red Planet view would have to be the dust devil featured in this week's video report from rover mission manager Byron Jones. He said Spirit spends a few minutes every morning looking for such mini-tornadoes - which have been seen plenty of times in the course of the rover's 39-month mission on Mars. This particular whirlwind is interesting because it seems to collapse right in front of the camera, like a ghost being exorcised.

Jones also pointed out Spirit's next target, an outcropping of bedrock nicknamed Madeline English. The rover has to use a parallel-parking technique as well as a driving technique called "crabbing" to sidle up to the rock, in part because of its bum right front wheel. Eventually, Spirit is due to climb right on top of an intriguing rock formation called "Home Plate," which it took an all-too-brief look at last year. Spirit had to leave Home Plate behind so it could find a sunny place where it could ride out the Martian winter.

On the other side of the planet, Opportunity is still snooping around the edges of the half-mile-wide (800-meter-wide) Victoria Crater. Jones said the rover's next task is to take a closer look at the dark flecks spotted within the crater from orbit. The still images included in his video report make downward drop from the rim look positively vertiginous.

The video report and the weekly status reports are the most easily digestible ways to keep track of what's happening to NASA's amazingly long-lived rovers. As the twin missions have settled into the long term, the big-production image releases have become fewer and farther between. In the months ahead, the spotlight may well turn more toward Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a mission that is just now hitting its stride, as well as the Mars Phoenix mission that's due for launch in August.

That doesn't mean there's any letup in the raw imagery: You can still find tons of those unprocessed pictures in the galleries maintained by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Exploratorium.

I'm starting to favor Web sites such as the Pancam team's archive (which has up-to-date color imagery) and Michael Lyle's image server (which provides pseudocolor and 3-D pictures). Cosmic Log's Italy correspondent, Gaetano Marano, has his own favorite sources for 3-D Mars imagery. Keep your red-blue glasses at the ready, and leave a comment if you have other favorite sources for rover pictures.

NASA / Univ. of Ariz.

The high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter sent back this view of the Face of Mars, first noted three decades ago.

When it comes to Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, you can check JPL's Web site, or the home page for the imaging spectrometer team, but I think the Web site for the high-resolution camera's science team (a.k.a. HiRISE) is the best place to check for the latest released imagery. That's where I found the latest rendition of the Face on Mars this week.

It's worth noting that ever since the Face was first spotted by Viking back in 1976, every successful Red Planet orbiter has had a little face time with the spooky anomaly: You can see versions from Mars Global Surveyor, from Mars Odyssey, from Mars Express and now Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The dearly departed Global Surveyor was the mission that really ended the Face's appeal for all but its hard-core fans. The probe's camera was capable of much higher resolution than Viking's, and that meant the fuzzy, facelike features looked more and more like natural bumps and ridges.

The latest image, which is available in file sizes up to 303 megabytes, removes still more of the mystery. Nevertheless, HiRISE's views of the eerie Martian terrain, including the Face as well as the Red Planet's rippled dunes and layered deposits, are as haunting as ever.

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Comments

You never know if the Face on Mars could have been made with the purpose of it looking like a face from above in a certain light only. Although I have begun to think it's natural for some time, we won't know until we send either a remote-controlled camera (similar to Opportunity/Spirit) or a human there to really examine and analyze the Face on Mars and the surrounding areas.

James, Nashville, TN (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 2:47 AM)

.

the Lockheed-Martin Corp. CEO Robert Stevens said in an interview that he have fear the U.S. is in danger of "ceding our spaceflight leadership to Russia, China and even India":

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/
showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=1HFIEDFC5O5VGQS
NDLRCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=198900572

so, why don't build the new hardware FASTER ?

my latest suggestion is to use the ready available Vulcain 2 engine for the Ares-I 2nd stage and the Ares-V EDS to SAVE several hundreds million$ and 4+ years of R&D time

the Vulcain 2 already has the required vacuum thrust (303,490 lbs.) that a J-2x just "hope to have" at the end of its (very long) R&D trip (295,000 lbs.)

a further suggestion is to build an "Ares-F" with the Ariane5-derived hardware:

http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/024aresF.html

following this way, the first manned Orion flight will happen in 2012 as planned in the early (not delayed) ESAS timeline

.

Gaetano Marano - Italy (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 5:32 AM)

Well gee, that photo (of the 'tornado') explains a lot.

The reason there is no life of Mars is because, as the photo shows, there are no tornado warning sirens. Hence, when previous tornadoes approached without warning, the Martianites never had a chance to seek shelter.

As the photo clearly depicts, the entire planet was desecrated by the storm and there's nowhere left for them to live.

Dude - you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure these things out.

Next quandary?

Dean Monroe (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 7:39 AM)

My gawd, it's an eroded Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes! (1968)

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/PSP/PSP_003234_2210/
PSP_003234_2210_RED.thumb.jpg

http://www.losrauncheros.com/chimps.html

Thomas Ashby, Calgary (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 11:11 AM)

It appears that our rover friends are on the brink of doing all they possibly can do. I can't see things getting any better than Victoria crater. The geolo gies and environments at the 2 locations have been scrutinized and that's as good as it going to get, which is totally fabulous. There are few words left to describe the overwhelming success of the rover missions. Incidentally, I have never heard or read squat about the daily or yearly meteorology. I wonder where that information is available.

Thomas Ashby, Calgary (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 11:19 AM)

There's additional discussion of the electrical nature of Martian and Earthly dust devils available here:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/
tpod/2005/arch05/050916dustdevil.htm

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/
2005/arch05/050322dustdevils.htm

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/
2005/arch05/050321electridevils.htm

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/
2005/arch05/050721dustdevils.htm

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/
2005/arch05/050330tornado-electric-discharge.htm

http://www.peter-thomson.co.uk/tornado/fusion/
Charge_sheath_vortex_basics_for_tornado.html

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 5:33 PM)

The face picture, shown above, has what appears to be a ramp up the side of it. The three near-equally spaced craters on three corners of the photo add to the effect this is not a natural phenomenen. Fascinating! But then, fascinating have been all the Mars photos!

Lyle W. La Faver (Middletown, CA.) (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 5:41 PM)

I want my next car built by the guys that made those little Mars Rovers. If those little pioneering bots can last this long on an alien planet through those kind of conditions and they're still sending back data; that engineering team deserves high praise indeed.

LTM Las Vegas, Nevada (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 8:19 PM)

The "face" is actually the remnant of the last refuge of the Margonites, a race of small but advanced humanoid creatures, who ignored global warming signs until, without warning, the atmosphere started to bleed from the planet due to excessive heat. The "face" mountain became the tomb of the Margonites as suplies of stored oxygen ran out some sixteen thousand earth-years ago. An entrance chamber can be found beneath the left eye. An Interstellar Monitor Underground [radio] Station(Imus)was operational until recently. It ceased its transmissions without warning, due to excessive heat generated through spurious radio transmissions.

John Doe, Seattle, Wash. (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 9:12 PM)

Take the photo, turn it upside down and there is a typical alien face, big eyes pointy chin and wide forhead. So they tricked us into seeing the Human face or were we just that self centered? Hmmm?

Tim White, DeRidder, LA (Sent Saturday, April 14, 2007 9:14 PM)

Alright, so in a fuzzy image from the dark ages the "face" on Mars appears to be humanoid. But why must we always try to assume extraterrestrial life would resemble us in any way, shape, fashion, or form (i.e. two eyes, nose, mouth)? It wouldn't (and shouldn't) at all surprise me to discover that we're as "human" as it gets in our corner of the universe.

Rusty W., Sherman, TX. (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 12:48 AM)

I swear; as I went through my sliding glass door onto the balcony; looking up at the cloud formations whizzing by, heading for Big Bear Mountain where my brother john live, that I saw faces - animals - slot machines - SUVs. I grabbed my Binoculars and focused on them. Just then a flying object appeared before me eyes - it had landing pods and seemingly was about to alight on a surfing board. Dang; I wasabout to call this in to mcscb when the object swung around and stung me on the nose. Dag-Nab it! So much for my roving on the balcony!

Donny LLahma of great wisdom; Fawntucky, Ca. 92336 (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 1:06 AM)

Turned upside down and softened, it resembles Madonna and child to me. More like a gigantic religious medallion.

Bob Littleton, Allenton MN (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 1:29 AM)

So when we do find life can we send all the missionaries straight away to convert them. I understand it will be a long flight.

franz kafka (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 1:34 AM)

Maybe if they searched the side of mars opposite of the face they would find a nice pair of mountains that look just like feet.so much for the face theory. I think that tabloids would love this!

Mark Belleisle belfast ME (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 2:43 AM)

Theres speculation that the "face" shot is actually a left over monument from the Simian Era of mars, which everyone knows is when ape like mammals ruled the martians for almost seven decades.

Proffessor Oak, Funkytown, CA (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 5:33 AM)

This face is obviously the handiwork of none other than Bruno Hauptman. The footprint of a ladder is clearly visible in the upper right corner.

Gritte Fritter TN (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 10:16 AM)

Now that we know there is enough water, probably one set of Martians will be Earthlings that have lived there so long or maybe two or three generations down of low gravity adapted people they can't live with Earth gravity. Second wild thing is that inside, with Earth density atmosphere to breathe but low, Martian gravity, people could strap on wings and fly indoors on muscle power alone.

Mark (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:43 AM)

.

really, I can't believe how the "Mars' Face" is still used as an evidence of extraterrestrial/martian life and of ancient civilizations (maybe, due the giant lack of better ET evidences in the ufologists' hands... :) since...

1. the image is very far to resemble an human face (and we must be very optimist or use our best imagination to "see" it)

2. we will deeply investigate the day we'll land on Mars (of course) but, so far, it seems ONLY a mountain, NOT a "manufact", then, its shape is only a coincidence (like hundreds existing on earth)

3. assuming it's a face really "built" (e.g.) one billion years ago by an ET civilization (something like the Mount Rushmore National Memorial) it should have the face of the (one-bililions-ago) MARTIANS and NOT of the (to-day's) TERRESTRIALS

4. the mountain (itself) has its face-shape from BILLIONS years, while we have our "current" (similar) face just from a few THOUSANDS years (the face of our forefathers was VERY different)

5. as a consequence, if it is the image of a terrestrial, the martians must have "built" the giant sculpture just a few thousands years ago (after an earth trip... :) and a few thousands/hundreds years before their extinction... but, if that's true, where are the martians' cities, highways, airports, skyscrapers (etc.) lost after the extinction? (like those of Maya, Incas, etc.)

etc.

.

Gaetano Marano - Italy (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:55 AM)

Mark: "We" already have, and it wasn't feet we found antipodal to the face [:)].

http://asuaf.org/~johnc/MarsButt.html

http://asuaf.org/~johnc/MarsButtPoster.html

-Personally I think the HiRise team was just trying to set off another round of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing by the usual crowd.

-The loss of MGS is unfortunate, especially the way it happened (human error again!?), but it operated for almost a DECADE, and we now have 2 other orbitters in place.

-The Rovers (and in fact the whole REAL exploration arm of the US' space program) have indeed done amazing things. Spacecraft and rovers are typically built by teams of engineers and scientists assembled specially for the purpose.

JC, Fairbanks, AK (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 1:35 PM)

It just looks like Al Gore to me.

Otto Wustle (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 10:14 PM)

the photos are amazing in that they're of someplace SOOOO far away! however . . . the declarations, postulations, and suppositions regarding just what it is we're looking at seem little different to me than some of lewis' & clarke's records of new sights they were seeing. don't you just know that some day people will look back at our explorations and smile at how terribly, terribly little we actually were right about = )

ZF, Sterling, VA (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 10:27 PM)

Franz-- As for the missionaries, you may be interested in 'The Sparrow' and 'Children of God', both by Mary Doria Russell. And yes, both are science fiction.

Mike Maxwell (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:20 PM)

Hi, Alan -- wouldn't you know that 'the face' would attract more attention than Chris Reeve's discourse on the electrical nature of space and the 'dust devils' of Mars? Don't we have enough images of people and their various parts replicated in rocks and trees and showing up in half-eaten sandwiches, potato chips and stained-glass windows already?

Des Emery,The Carborundum Chronicles,St.Thomas,ON,Canada (Sent Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:23 PM)

We are the only human beings in the entire UNIVERSE!!!

Lou Kravitz (Sent Monday, April 16, 2007 2:41 AM)

Maybe the face of Mars used to look like a face, but over time it's been eroded to that. it is truly a case of sending probes actually there, or people there

i know they say it will take years for people to fly to the moon, but surely the longer we take to send someone the longer it will be until they are there

Peter King Hereford England [The UK one] (Sent Monday, April 16, 2007 6:13 AM)

Why waste time going to Mars? Why don't we get a family of healthy people who agree to go on a one way trip up and out? They can send radio signals to beacons they leave along the way that will send the feeds back to earth. they know they won't come back but we can send a woman who is pregnant. they can be accompanied by a doctor who will perform the birth. we then have the first person born in space and the next generation of pilot for the ship. all they have to do is keeping sending radio signals. i know i know the variables that would prevent something like this from actually working would be astronimcal. (get it, astronomical!) But i am certain we could find willing participants, so many in fact that if we started pumping out nuclear powered space ships, we would have people standing in lines waiting on their one way trip to spatial enlightenment.

Hunter Jacksonville Fl (Sent Monday, April 16, 2007 5:02 PM)

To add to my original comment above:

There's also a possibility that the Face on Mars could have simply evolved and degraded over time and not look too much like it had originally.

I really think NASA should have dropped one of the robotic rovers near the Face on Mars. There's all kinds of interesting things in the Cydonia region of Mars. I'm sure NASA will do something in that area eventually.

James, Nashville, TN (Sent Tuesday, April 17, 2007 12:25 AM)

Des Emery makes a GREAT point! For people interested, here:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-061

are multiple images (NOT video) of dust devils passing across the field of view of the SPIRIT Rover. Be warned! You will need much more than my own 0.0 kB/sec stone-age dial-up technology unless you have several hours on your hands to view them. As far as studies of electrical activity generated by these things, there IS writing about it in the professional literature (Geophysical Research Letters, J. of Geophysical Research, Icarus). Subscriptions to these are WAY out of the reach of Mere Mortals like me, but not beyond university libraries ..however I must point out that concise versions of a lot of planetary science, especially "cutting-edge" stuff, appears in proceedings of the Lunar & Planetary Science Conferences before it’s published, and freely available on-line at:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/abstracts.shtml

Unfortunately it’s not very ‘searchable’….

Also see: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/ (the Lunar and Planetary Institute’s homepage).

JC, Fairbanks, AK (Sent Tuesday, April 17, 2007 4:23 AM)

.

Hunter said... "we can send a woman who is pregnant"

I think it's better to conceive the baby while flying to Mars... having (also) something pleasant to do during the boring six-months' trip... :)

PS - I'm ready to sacrifice myself for science flying (now!) to Mars with Giselle Bundchen to accomplish the 1st-Mars-baby mission/experiment... :)

.

Gaetano Marano - Italy (Sent Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:10 AM)

JC of Fairbanks -- many thanks for the info about other links -- I have explored them briefly but will return -- you're so right on "searchability" but I do have the time. Your previous contributions to Alan's blog here during the few months that I have waded into the conversation have been appreciated.

Des Emery,The Carborundum Chronicles,St.Thomas,ON,Canada (Sent Wednesday, April 18, 2007 12:29 AM)

Two things raced into my mind when i saw the face image.........1. Great Serpent Mounds (Ohio River?) and...........2. The Virgin Mary

Bev, NB (Sent Wednesday, April 18, 2007 5:43 AM)

.

this is a further (important) point about the Mars' Face:

6. OUR (vague!) resemblance with the (one+ billions years old) Mars' Face is (ONLY) due to the fact that our evolution comes from MONKEYS, but, if the evolution of our (sometimes intelligent... :) specie were from (e.g.) reptiles or cetaceans, now we should search a Lizard-shaped or a Dolphin-shaped mountain... (while the Mars' Face would be ONLY a very common Mars' mountain, like thousands others)

.

Gaetano Marano - Italy (Sent Wednesday, April 18, 2007 1:03 PM)

'scholar.google.com' can be a powerful help, Des Emery. Try the string: ""mars "dust devil" electric"" on it (I wonder what the N.S.A. will make of THAT when Google passes it on to them . . .). LPSC and other meeting abstracts are included there.

JC, FBX, AK (Sent Friday, April 20, 2007 1:25 AM)

Its simple, martians are invisable! thats why we can't see them. They're watching us right now!

Derick Striker, Scottsdale, AZ (Sent Friday, May 11, 2007 2:35 PM)

I would like to get people thinking about a solar Car.
If we can make a piece of equipment work millions of miles away with no oil or electricity with the sun providing the whatever to make it work,If our scientist put their heads together, they could get it done Horay for usa

Jane Butler, Mobile, Alabama (Sent Saturday, June 07, 2008 5:59 PM)

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