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Weird Light Photographed On Mars

Posted April 09, 2014 12:18 PM

From Boing Boing:

A strange light was visible in photos of Mars like the one above taken by the Curiosity rover last week. Is it a beacon from an underground extraterrestrial base as some UFO researchers suggest, or simply sunlight glinting from a shiny rock? NASA claims it's likely the latter, but what do they know.

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SolarEagle
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#1

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/09/2014 1:21 PM

zoom zoom....

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Kilowatt0
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#2

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/09/2014 1:26 PM

So that's where they buried Jimmy Hoffa!

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#4
In reply to #2

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/09/2014 3:45 PM

I ain't no ghost! ...and I will continue to not never be no ghost, until ghostin' is unionised!
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#3

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/09/2014 2:43 PM

More likely it's a momentary noise spike in the camera, perhaps due to a cosmic ray. There are 2 cameras on the rover, left and right, for stereo/3D vision. The right camera shows the light spike, the left does not. If the light was due to a glint, the angular spread of the glint would have to be extremely narrow.

At Mars' distance, the Sun is about 0.3 degrees across (as compared to 0.5 degrees across as seen from Earth). If the cause of the glint was the Sun shining an object 2 km away (it looks further away), the spread of the glint would be more than 10 meters wide. Curiosity is 2.7 meters wide.

--This assumes that both cameras are taking images continuously. If there is any time delay between the left and right images, it might be possible for the glint to suddenly appear in one camera and be gone by the time the other camera takes an image.

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#14
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Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 11:39 AM

No, that's not what it is.........

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#5

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/09/2014 9:49 PM

"UFO researcher"... Are you kidding, or are you stinkin' kidding?

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#6

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 1:10 AM

It is the first interplanetary commercial: "Motel 6 .We'll keep a light on for you."

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#7

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 1:30 AM

What gets me is the graffitti covering the mountain behind it in the closeup.

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#8

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 1:48 AM

I don't see how this could be the sun reflecting from a shiny rock. There doesn't seem to be any other sunlight at all. It looks like twilight, after sunset.

The idea it could be a camera glitch would sound great, except it doesn't look anything like any camera malfunction I've ever seen.

How about a meteor hitting the ground, or very close to the ground? Would it leave much of a trail in the thin Martian atmosphere? Could it be a micrometeorite coming down from above and passing close in front of only one camera, or even glancing off the camera itself? That would explain why it is seen from only one camera.

I have to admit it really does look like a light rising from the ground. It seems too perfectly vertical and too symmetrical, like an explosion or volcanic outgassing. Swamp gas? Everything seems rather unlikely.

OK, I'll go with the alien beacon. Is the rover actually going to go there and say hello?

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Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 11:32 AM

OK, after seeing a larger version of the photo, I see that the sun is up in the sky above that mountain, and it is not twilight. The reason you don't see any sunlight is everything is lit from the other side. So it could be a reflection off a rock, if only it showed up on both cameras. The delay between cameras can be about a second.

I'm wondering if a strong outgassing that was lit up by the sun from the opposite side would look like this, especially if it were filled with dust. I wonder if something like that could last less than a second.

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#9

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 2:04 AM

Ignis fatuus. There too?

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#10

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 2:55 AM

We need a zombie apocalypse or aliens!

Dat last zoom..

Made my day

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#11

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 9:44 AM

Should have put the picture on "Caption This"!

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#12

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 9:59 AM

X-Files has been reanimated for one more season.....

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#15

Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/10/2014 11:51 AM

The Moth Man sure gets around.

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Re: Weird Light Photographed On Mars

04/11/2014 8:34 AM
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