A light eminating from Mars

[spacemaverick]

http://www.chron.com/news/strange-weird/article/NASA-photo-captures-strange-bright-light-coming-5382677.php?cmpid=hpts

A NASA camera on Mars has captured what appears to be artificial light emanating outward from the planet's surface.

The photo, beamed millions of miles from Mars to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was taken last week, apparently by one of two NASA rovers on the red planet.

Although the space agency hasn't issued any official statement yet about the phenomenon, bloggers and NASA enthusiasts have started chiming in. 

Scott C. Waring, who maintains the website UFO Sightings Daily, posted the photo April 6.

Waring noted that the light shines upward, as if from the ground, and is very flat across the bottom.

"This could indicate there there is intelligent life below the ground and uses light as we do," Waring wrote on his website. "This is not a glare from the sun, nor is it an artifact of the photo process."

Earlier this month, NASA announced that on April 2, the Curiosity rover drove the last 98 feet needed to arrive at "the Kimberley," a spot where it can study rock clues about ancient environments that might have been favorable for life, according to a news release.

The Kimberley, where four different types of rock intersect, is named for a region of western Australia. The rover's stay there has been planned since early last year, the release said.

"This is the spot on the map we've been headed for, on a little rise that gives us a great view for context imaging of the outcrops at the Kimberley," Melissa Rice of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said in the release.

Rice is the scientist in charge of planning several weeks of observations, sample-drilling and on-site laboratory analysis of the area's rocks.

Arrival at this location means Curiosity has driven 3.8 miles since August 2012, when it landed inside Mars' Gale Crater.

The Kimberley investigations are to be the most extensive since Curiosity spent the first half of 2013 in an area called Yellowknife Bay, the release said.

At Yellowknife Bay, the one-ton rover examined the first samples ever drilled from rocks on Mars. These samples showed signs of an ancient lakebed environment that provided the chemical ingredients and energy necessary for life, the release said.

At the Kimberley and, later, at outcrops on the slope of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, researchers plan to use Curiosity's science instruments to learn more about habitable past conditions and environmental changes.


The photos are in the page at above link.  I haven't figured out to put them here yet.

[ArMaP]

I saw this yesterday.

There are two photos with white spots on them, both have just one pixel completely white (RGB 255,255,255), and that makes me think that both may the results of cosmic rays hitting the sensor (it's the same sensor on both cases, on two consecutive Sols) and overloading one pixel and affecting some of the others near it.

Also, those photos are from one camera, there's another camera that takes photos at the same time (the time stamp has a precisions of 1 second and shows the same time), and only one camera shows the white pixels.

[zorgon]

[rdunk]

Suggest this probably could be moved to Mars Anomalies Board at some point, since that is what it is.

[rdunk]

I am confident that most everyone immediately focuses in the pic upon the bright white light,  or whatever it is that is being emitted, which is what I did. But, if one magnifies this thing, and follows the slight more open area down from the white object, about half way down the hill, one can begin to see some pretty odd shapes. And then, there are also other places in this pic that has some odd looking features - odd-looking means "possibly not natural"!  There are numerous items that have spherical shaped tops.

Just a lot of pieces that do not look natural to me. I guess could be combination of cosmic rays and pixelation! I am going to look at some of the other pics, to see what else there is to see in these.

[Fruitbat]

IS it just me or is anyone else surprised to find that they have 2 rovers on mars?

I remember the one with the hovering "crane" quite well, but how did the second one get there?

X43, by any chance?

FB.

[zorgon]

IS it just me or is anyone else surprised to find that they have 2 rovers on mars?

There are three rovers  Opportunity, Spirit and now Curiosity. Spirit broke a wheel and as far as I know is not functional anymore... yeah just checked Spirit is now silent but Opportunity is stll going

[ArMaP]

There are three rovers  Opportunity, Spirit and now Curiosity. Spirit broke a wheel and as far as I know is not functional anymore... yeah just checked Spirit is now silent but Opportunity is stll going

Wasn't Spirit the rover that got stuck on the very fine, mostly silica, sand?

And you forgot the first, Sojourner, the one I usually forget about.

[Sinny]

I saw this yesterday.

There are two photos with white spots on them, both have just one pixel completely white (RGB 255,255,255), and that makes me think that both may the results of cosmic rays hitting the sensor (it's the same sensor on both cases, on two consecutive Sols) and overloading one pixel and affecting some of the others near it.

Also, those photos are from one camera, there's another camera that takes photos at the same time (the time stamp has a precisions of 1 second and shows the same time), and only one camera shows the white pixels.

Same as Phage then, loved seeing the other members bash him yesterday aha.

[Gigas]

Looks like a luminous out gassing to me. The way the mountains show the light from above makes it clear that light has the sun lighting it up from just over and behind the gassing.

That gassing could be ice crystals we see here on planet E when in the upper atmosphere reflecting sunlite creating a luminous glow.

[easynow]

Alleged preliminary response from the NASA peeps ...

Weird 'UFO' Light on Mars May Just Be a Shiny Rock, NASA Says

"One possibility is that the light is the glint from a rock surface reflecting the sun. When these images were taken each day, the sun was in the same direction as the bright spot, west-northwest from the rover, and relatively low in the sky,"

"The rover science team is also looking at the possibility that the bright spots could be sunlight reaching the camera's CCD [charge-coupled device] directly through a vent hole in the camera housing, which has happened previously on other cameras on Curiosity and other Mars rovers

Link - http://www.space.com/25399-mars-ufo-light-curiosity-rover-video.html?cmpid=514648

[ArMaP]

Looks like a luminous out gassing to me. The way the mountains show the light from above makes it clear that light has the sun lighting it up from just over and behind the gassing.

That gassing could be ice crystals we see here on planet E when in the upper atmosphere reflecting sunlite creating a luminous glow.

But why didn't the other camera captured it in a photo taken at the same time?

[ArMaP]

Alleged preliminary response from the NASA peeps ...

That's a strange response, I don't see how that could happen and be exactly just one pixel wide and perfectly vertical.

[Gigas]

Are both cameras tuned to see the same wave length of light or colors

[ArMaP]

Are both cameras tuned to see the same wave length of light or colors

Yes, 600 to 800 nm.