Odd Or Unusual Images
Things that make you wonder what you are seeing - part 2
Here are a few more of the unusual things that crop up in some of the images. You must keep a sharp eye to spot some of them, and most probably have very simple explanations. Bearing that in mind, let's examine a few more of the stranger sights on Mars that have been sent back by the two latest rovers.
| Spirit also
has a few really odd things in some of its images. This is the most
fantastic one here- I saw these markings in the soil and thought,
"that looks like the markings that crabs make when they crawl through
damp sand." See Sol
076, microscopic imager for the original.
Well, I took a trip to the beach and found some small crab burrows and photographed them. And yes, the markings are exactly like those that crab claws make. It is also worthy of note that from examining the images from both rovers, you can see that the sand and dust are moving along in realtime. Some images show large differences in the movement of sand from shot to shot. This means that these little markings should erode away in a matter of days. The only possibility is that these markings are fresh. |
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Compare those markings to these. I photographed these just north of Daytona Beach here in Florida during a grueling field research trip. Notice how the damp sand has sharp, well defined markings, while the drier sand has softer, worn markings. These are nearly identical to the markings seen in the last image, and are made by small pointed legs being moved through the sand. In fact, nearly any insect can also make similar markings. I placed various insects and beetles in containers of sand and observed (and photographed) the resulting markings and there is excellent correspondence. |
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| This is truly
weird. This is from Spirit on Sol 049. A simple picture of
soil clumps turns out to show something that looks like a small frog or a
sock puppet. The
original NASA image is here.
On seeing this, I thought immediately that it was a joke. My younger daughter even said, "look, there's a frog." It appears below the large dirt clod and to the left. The real scale of this thing (whatever it may be) is 4mm wide and 3 mm tall- the head of a decent earthworm would be about that big. And yes, it does really look like a frog. It is clearly symmetrical and shows two "eyes" and a mouth- and the bottom is even colored differently from the top. I have a tough time believing that this is more than a simple illusion, but it appears in all the rest of the images of this dirt, although nearly every image on this sol is completely out of focus. You would think that an auto-focus would be cheap enough to put in a spacecraft that runs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. |
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| Here is an
enlargement of the "frog head." In magnification, it looks
more like a snake or lizard than a frog, but still- it is difficult for me
to believe that this is anything more than a chance arrangement of
elements that looks like a frog or lizard.
On the other hand, with what I have seen so far, I guess it would not be too surprising. Maybe this is where Kermit spends his vacations. |
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Now, back to those markings in the sand- I found this tantalizing image on Sol 141, Spirit. This is the microscopic image of what appears to be some dead insects. There are no doubts that the shapes of these things are identical to those of dead bugs lying on their backs. You can even make out the margin around the abdomen of the middle right one. These things are bilaterally symmetrical and shaped exactly like beetles. They show what appear to be mouth parts, legs, and antenna stalks.
Are these, in fact, some sort of dead Martian arthropods? You can see the original image here at the NASA site.
