NASA photo captures strange bright light coming out of Mars

[aggiesal]

Last edited Wed Apr 9, 2014, 02:29 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Houston Chronicle/SF Gate

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.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/strange-weird/article/NASA-photo-captures-strange-bright-light-coming-5382677.php#photo-6131484

---

Mystery on Mars
Sounds like a movie.

Wait a couple of years, the Republicans will find a reason to cut their budget
so the aliens won't be able to afford their electricity bill.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. I remain dubious about E.T. playing flashlight tag with the Mars rover

but it's fascinating nonetheless. I'll keep looking for possible explanations.

[kysrsoze]

2. Interesting. It does not look fake. Like Pete Townshend, I can't explain.

[lostincalifornia]

3. It will be a reflection or something natural

[MFM008]

6. reflecting upward like a beam at night?

they need to send that 2. something billion dollar robot OVER TO THAT SPOT to have a good old LOOK SEE.
If I was controlling it I would already have me a martian caught in my sample bag.
Really its interesting and needs further examination.

[diverdownjt]

12. It's not a beam of light....

Since when does a beam of light travel 20ft. and stop. This is something reflecting light.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's a small geyser. Drive that rover strait to it now.
It is a very cool picture.

[diverdownjt]

17. ..........

On another topic....THERE IS WATER ON MARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Holy crap and stuff like that......

[BlueStreak]

31. The rover can only move a couple football fiels lengths a day

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/tl_surface_nav.html

It would take months to cover that distance.

[William Seger]

64. NASA says the ridge is only 175 yards away

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1621

It will be interesting to see if NASA decides to go there, but I'd try to get a few more shots to see if it happens again before moving. If it happens again at about the same time of Martian day, that would support the reflection theory.

[BlueStreak]

65. It looked a lot farther than that, but I guess that is an illusion

[William Seger]

66. Hard to say, NASA could be wrong

When viewed in 3D, there is a ridge to the right of the light that does seem to be fairly close. However, that ridge drops off a little to the left of the light, and there is another ridge beyond. Zoomed in, it looks like the light might actually be coming from that farther ridge (if it's actually something on the surface).

In the following (slightly enhanced) images, the left and center pics can be viewed as a cross-view stereo pair (i.e. cross your eyes as if looking at something about a foot away until the two images become one), and the center and right pics can be viewed as a parallel pair (like old-fashioned stereoscope cards).

[yurbud]

37. that sounds about right. Worth investigating in any case.

[Warpy]

76. That's kind of what it looks like to me

Looks like there is something still geologically active on Mars, after all.

[ObaMania]

25. Exactly.

I'm wondering why they didn't get a closer look before these pics even became public? 'Course the rover might move at a snail's pace, but the world could have waited for this.

[reflection]

45. It wasn't me, I swear.

[struggle4progress]

4. ... The Houston Chronicle is repeating a story they found on a UFO conspiracy site ... I’ve worked

with astronomical cameras for .. years, and we see little blips like this all the time ... Curiosity was taking a picture of the Martian horizon, and during the time the picture was taken, a subatomic particle smacked into the camera, leaving behind its trail of energy. It’s a camera artifact ...

No, That’s NOT an Artificial Light on Mars
By Phil Plait
April 8 2014 12:30 PM

[Kablooie]

20. I'm sure that's what it is.

It looks like something leaving a short trail.
It just chance that it's aligned with a horizon.

[DeSwiss]

5. I thought I lost my flashlight......

...on Jupiter, but it was Mars.

- I do that all the time.....

K&R

[defacto7]

7. Calling Richard Hoagland!!

Never mind. It's God.

[Botany]

8. As if we don't know

[aggiesal]

13. I suspected Marvin. LOL n/t

[JohnnyRingo]

9. It's time...

I must leave now, DU.

For what may happen in the future, you must not blame yourselves. I will petition the overseers to grant you a merciful end.

Thank you for these years of insight to your primitive culture.

Sincerely,
ɔʌƃoɾʎxʌɥɹ

[randome]

30. Wait a second, let's not be too hasty!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[uhnope]

10. debunked by NASA

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-explains-martian-flash-its-not-what-you-think-n74931

A leader of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover team has offered a couple of explanations for an anomalous bright spot that showed up on pictures from the Red Planet — but they're not the conventional explanations.

Let's get this straight first: It's not an alien spotlight, according to Justin Maki, an imaging scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is the lead for Curiosity's engineering cameras. Maki isn't giving any weight to the not-completely-serious claims that are being bandied about by UFO websites.

[tofuandbeer]

11. Thanks!

[penultimate]

16. swamp gas...as usual.

[Jackpine Radical]

80. No, no, it's Venus.

Or perhaps a weather balloon…Oh, wait…

[johnstyle]

14. About NASA search.

It is great news, NASA always discover new things about the world which is good thing so that every inventions is milestone for human.

[Okakura]

15. Mystery of underground white-light source needs solution

The top of the white plume seems to taper off into grey-colored gases.
Probably some kind of geothermal activity--altho could be frozen gas rather than thermal.
The mystery lies in the source of the intense white-light illumination.

[L0oniX]

35. Fracking?

[hollysmom]

54. nope,Planet Fart. n/t

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

18. BREAKING: National Guard investigating possible meteorite crash on farm near Grover's Mill, N.J.

We take you now to Professor Pierson of Princeton University

[pacalo]

22. That's probably what inspired Roger Ailes.

[pacalo]

23. My guess...

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

19. Its Drunk Aliens lighting their farts

[JHB]

21. Odds are a camera artifact rather than something actually taking place on Mars n/t

[Helen Borg]

24. Cosmic ray hitting camera detector?

That same bright segment is NOT there in the left camera shot, taken at the same time... Since the left camera is just a few cm away, it should have registered the brit segment, had it been really an entity in the distance...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

26. It's already explained. There were two simultaneous photos.

The camera there has two sensors and makes two pictures simultaneously. One sensor got a cosmic ray strike at the instant of the photo or readout. The other did not. Mars has a thin atmosphere that provides little protection compared to Earth's.

Follow the links in the articles and you get to one that shows both pictures and explains it. That column (Bad Astronomy) is a good one to follow or visit:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/08/curiosity_photo_light_seen_on_mars_is_a_camera_artifact_not_a_real_one.html

[William Seger]

32. I dunno, Phil may be wrong about this one

It certainly doesn't look like an "artificial light emanating outward" unless there's some seriously thick fog hanging right over that spot and nowhere else, but the problem with the cosmic ray theory is that there was another photo taken the day before that shows a bright spot on the same ridge:



The spot is in a different position horizontally, but it appears to be in the same vertical position near the top of the ridge. That would be a remarkable coincidence if they are cosmic ray hits. The first spot is also seen in only one image of the stereo pair, but in that shot the other camera appears to be blocked by a closer ridge.

Here is what the two spots look like in the original images, btw, with straight pixel enlargement and no digital smoothing (which can be very misleading):

[Bernardo de La Paz]

39. Thanks. The mystery deepens. nt

[Duer 157099]

41. Is that true about a 2nd photo being captured the day prior?

Link?

If so, then why would so many accept this cosmic ray explanation so readily?

[William Seger]

49. Yes, that's the photo from the day before in my post

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1621

[Duer 157099]

53. Interesting, thanks.

That they would mention a cosmic ray as a possibility on the jpl site is... disconcerting.

I could see maybe a lense scratch of some sort, but it doesn't localize to the same spot on the frame.

ETD

?????

[Duer 157099]

55. Does the resolution seem to differ to you?

To me, it seems that both images with the bright spots are taken at a higher resolution. Do you see that too?

[William Seger]

58. Do you mean differences for the stereo pairs?

Comparing the left and right camera images closely, the resolution seems to be the same, but the left camera images have more noise (e.g. the sky and distant mountain are noticeably grainier). That could be because of sensitivity differences in the chips or slightly different exposures, which is a common problem with shooting stereo with two separate cameras (or even with one camera if you take two separate shots). One article I read said that the left image was taken about a second later, so the cameras are not synchronized, which means that another possible reason the left image doesn't show the spot is because it was a brief flash. (I was surprised to read that the cameras aren't synchronized, since that means the stereo effect will be screwed up when the rover is moving.)

[Duer 157099]

59. I mean for each pair that was taken over 2 days (so, same camera)

the one with the light is less grainy.

Overlay them and then toggle between the layers to see what I mean.

Each image that has the light seems to be less pixilated. Don't know what to make of that though. Just an observation.

[bananas]

69. Thanks. nt

[Reter]

50. Yeah ok

Ever notice that NASA scientists are always quick to offer an explanation? God forbid scientists say "I don't know" for things like this. And the worst part? It's always a logical explanation. Same thing with the missing plane. Always logical, like "bottom of the sea" or something. Never do they or any news organisations offer the possibility of something far more unknown.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

56. Get real. Scientists are ready to say "I don't know". You are drawing

You are drawing the wrong conclusion from one example (Mars). Scientists are much more ready to say "I don't know" than the average person.

Almost all people interviewed on TV are not scientists, but are "experts". Experts get paid for saying things, anything except "I don't know".

Are you woo? What is this "something far more unknown"? Are you thinking of aliens or Bermuda Triangles, etc.? Sure sounds like it.

[Reter]

60. I said NASA scientists, not all scientists

The NASA crowd is far more likely to offer something logical than to say they don't know, especially when it's something like this.

I wouldn't call myself a "woo" at all. I don't believe in conspiracies, except probably the 2004 election (2000 wasn't stolen from the start in my opinion, just stopped from recounting) and probably JFK. However, if the plane is never found after a while, a wormhole/time portal should certainly be looked at. Who knows?

[Codeine]

61. Not a woo, but postulating a wormhole to explain a missing plane.

Mmm-hmm.

[Reter]

72. That's right

I didn't say I think that's what happened. Perhaps it's on the bottom of the ocean. Maybe even crashed on a tiny island. I don't know.

Let me ask you this though. Suppose it's two years from now and we still have nothing. Or 10 years. At some point you have to have an open mind and stop listening to "rational" theories.

[Codeine]

73. There's no point at which "wormholes and time portals" make more sense than

"the ocean is both incredibly vast and terrifyingly deep, and thus shit can get lost within it's watery expanse in a really serious way." Hell, PIA Flight 404 still hasn't been found, and it crashed overland more than 20 years ago.

Tearing a page from bad SF literature is very rarely the way to explain anything.

[Reter]

74. Therein lies the problem

You seem 100% convinced that PIA Flight 404 crashed in the ocean. Maybe, just maybe, it didn't.

[Codeine]

77. Ummm, PIA 404 didn't crash in the ocean. Whole different wreck.

It crashed on land in '89 and it's still missing. Now imagine how much more difficult finding something underwater might be.

If - and that's a big if - the Malaysian airliner crashed into the ocean it's not unrealistic to assume we may never find it, though we probably will eventually.

[Reter]

81. I apologize

To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not familiar at all with PIA 404. I will read up on it, it certainly is a very strange mystery if it crashed on land and is still missing. So how do they know it crashed on land (PIA 404), and not the ocean?

[arcane1]

78. Hell, "maybe" it shrunk down to microscopic size and flew up my ass.

We can't close our minds to the possibilities.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

62. "Wormhole/time portal" -- what utter unscientific nonsense for the plane. P.S. Public NASA

Public NASA spokespeople, whether practicing scientists or not, are there for the purpose of explaining things. They are not representative of NASA scientists or "the NASA crowd".

If you read the articles, you'd see that they didn't offer a definitive explanation, but rather a couple of possibilities.

"Wormhole/time portal" is a nice speculative fiction idea and occasionally a point of departure for theoretical physics discussion, but none of those theoretical physicists would suggest we have ever had one on earth during human times, especially not one large enough to swallow a plane whole and untouched.

What utter shit "wormhole/time portal"!

[William Seger]

63. NASA says ""...which MIGHT BE due to ..."

I'm always appreciative when someone wants to "offer something logical" because the logic can be evaluated for soundness and validity, and perhaps suggest further inquiry. On the other hand, fanciful or illogical explanations can only be evaluated for their entertainment value. As Carl Sagan liked to say, science isn't so much about what we know; it's about how we know it.

[MannyGoldstein]

27. Looks like a smear. Must be smearmaster Glenn Greenwald.

I knew he wasn't living in the US because he knows we'll bring him to justice, but I forgot that he moved to Mars.

[Snotcicles]

28. campfire. nt

[Baitball Blogger]

29. Do they have deer on Mars?

[Android3.14]

38. Yes. Reindeer. Flying reindeer.

[bananas]

68. In blu-ray? And Pia Zadora was in it?

I didn't realize it came out in blu-ray, googled it and found out Pia Zadora was in it!
Learned two things today!

[rehabanderson]

33. It would take months to cover that distance.

It would take months to cover that distance.

[L0oniX]

34. You knew this was going to happen eventually...

[tclambert]

36. Ooh! The Martians are having a spotlight sale!

If we hurry there now, maybe we can beat the rush.

[tofuandbeer]

40. It's Koch industries.

[toby jo]

42. Beautiful mountain range.

I'm wondering how to seed it?

So say you take the organics of the place, cook up various combos, plot the ratio of our seed's em fields to the earths' and zap our new cosmic seed with that ratio? Well, what then? Ok, so now we got some grass. Then we create an arc from here to there, with whatever, and get a collective going.

The light is a crop circle, no doubt. There being no crops yet it'd be a little hard to detect.

[Ino]

43. Desmond Hume lit up the hatch! (nt)

[jpak]

44. Cosmic ray hits camera pixels

yawn

[magical thyme]

46. see post 32 nt

[dickthegrouch]

47. Rover! Bed time! Come here, boy /nt

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

48. Montgomery Burns

[Throckmorton]

57. Well, it least he was bringiing us peace N/T

[Historic NY]

51. Lights are on, somebody is home.

[kwassa]

52. Here is a new high-resolution picture of the light source.

[Kablooie]

67. It's the return of Jesus!!

He just got lost and ended up on the wrong planet.
It's been so long since he's been around here he's forgotten the way.

[nikto]

70. Those are obviously frozen sand dunes

Standard explanation for Mars phenomena.

[Sancho]

71. My God, it's full of stars!

[brooklynite]

75. from "The War of the Worlds..."

"During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions."

[chknltl]

79. Sunlight reflecting off of a dust devil made up of ice crystals?

Perhaps the strong Martian winds kicked up a typical Martian dust devil which in this case is reflecting sunlight. I could especially see this as a potential explanation if the dust particles themselves are made up of something extra reflective like ice or quartz crystals.