A White Thing In The Mars Sand

[funbox]

I read it , much about sand and protrusions ,, again ill ask why light is missing from the obscuring rock, surely old Sol's not discriminating against certain materials ...


or is She ?

funbox

[ArMaP]

I read it , much about sand and protrusions ,, again ill ask why light is missing from the obscuring rock, surely old Sol's not discriminating against certain materials ...


or is She ?

funbox

Because the face of the rock facing the camera is not facing the Sun, if I knew how to use Blender I could make a 3D representation of what I mean.
Maybe this is a good excuse to learn it.

[funbox]

if I knew what you was talking about I could interpret those thoughts into Max

but a sudden and rather uninspected arrival of Gif juice arrived covered in molten ice , so ide thought ide  ask you  again about the rock who has an aversion to light .. maybe its a vampiric rock >?



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[rdunk]

..........except of coures, IMO it is not sunlight that we see there on the sand. That is made pretty clear by the sand on top of the near end of the anomaly not being white too!! That hwole end piece is white too, except for the sand that lies on tope of it, which should be white too, it this "white" was actually sunlight. But tha lump od sand is not white!! is not white - see the pic!!

[funbox]

..........except of coures, IMO it is not sunlight that we see there on the sand. That is made pretty clear by the sand on top of the near end of the anomaly not being white too!! That hwole end piece is white too, except for the sand that lies on tope of it, which should be white too, it this "white" was actually sunlight. But tha lump od sand is not white!! is not white - see the pic!!

and sunlight wouldn't if, it was shining through a crack in the top of the cliff face , go all along one side of the spring board , and lighten its very tips

again maybe if there was something on the floor reflecting the light back up towards it , but I see no shiny thing's of the sandbank in front to make such a far fetched theory possible

no, im going to plumb with Occam's with this one and hazard that its a white material protruding from the cliffrocks

funclocks

[ArMaP]

That rock marked with red doesn't get direct light because it's facing the camera, like the striated rock behind it.

Imagine having a street from left to right, with the Sun to the left, shining directly along the street. The ground between the buildings on both sides of the street gets direct Sun light, the sides of the buildings facing the street do not.

[ArMaP]

That hwole end piece is white too, except for the sand that lies on tope of it, which should be white too, it this "white" was actually sunlight. But tha lump od sand is not white!! is not white - see the pic!!

If I understand what you mean by "lump of sand", it's not white because it's in the shadow.

[funbox]

That rock marked with red doesn't get direct light because it's facing the camera, like the striated rock behind it.

what has the camera got to do with anything ?

if a tree farts in the forest does it make a smell ?

funbox

[ArMaP]

what has the camera got to do with anything ?

First obvious answer, without the camera we wouldn't have the photo. 

The real answer, because, from the camera's point of view, the light is coming from the left, almost perpendicular to the direction the camera is facing.

[funbox]

The real answer, because, from the camera's point of view, the light is coming from the left, almost perpendicular to the direction the camera is facing.

please don't tell me you think that the camera can influence the way the lights falling on the rocks.
I think that tree may have followed through..

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[Sinny]

I don't thinks it's a visual lighting effect. I think it's something odd.

[ArMaP]

please don't tell me you think that the camera can influence the way the lights falling on the rocks.

I didn't say anything like that, only someone without a basic understanding of photography would say something like it, why bring that red herring to the conversation?

[ArMaP]

I don't thinks it's a visual lighting effect. I think it's something odd.

It could be an odd visual lighting effect.

[funbox]

I didn't say anything like that, only someone without a basic understanding of photography would say something like it, why bring that red herring to the conversation?

but you know I don't have a basic understanding of photography explain how the lit features within that rock cluster are influenced by the cameras angle ?

lensflares are one thing that springs to mind but they are not in the picture, and are irrelevant in this situation due to they're absence

how is the light interplay  excluding the rock obscuring the springboard , I cant see how the camera would play a part ..

funbox

hypothetically if you could stand there inplace of the rover , would you see the same as the camera does ?

[rdunk]

It could be an odd visual lighting effect.

What might/would make this anomaly "white-sand" would be that if the sunlight thru a crack in the rocks were putting a light-streak on the sand the total length of the white piece. That is because the total area where the white piece is seen is in full shadow - all of it - but, that is not the case.

Another way to realize that this white feature is not "created" by sunlight is to note that where any light would be coming through a crack in the rocks.........the walls of the rock-crack would be at least lightened-up/whitened-up just a little. But in the OP photo, we can see that there is no added light to the rock-walls near the "nose" of this white piece. 

No, there is no shadow on this white anomaly anywhere. The rock next to it is not casting any shadow over it, as it too is totally in shadow. Thus the sand on top of the right end of white piece is not in a "shadow of the rock".

I think Sinny nails it too, in saying, "I think it's something odd".

If anyone wants to know what sunlight on the sand from a crack in a rock on Mars looks like, here is another screenshot of real sunlight on the sand from the same OP photo. Note that just one of the differences is, we can still see the sand through the light that is on it, and it is not totally white either. Another thing for sure, the light seen on the sand has no "3D appearance", as does the anomalous object in the OP