Mystery martian object is relic of (our) civilisation
NASA has decided the mystery shiny object on Mars merits another day of probing, but is fairly sure it is a piece of plastic from the Curiosity rover. The space agency's explanation for the object says: The rover team's assessment is that the bright object is something from the rover, not Martian material. It appears to be a …
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Ah...humans !
We've already started tu turn Mars into a garbage dump too. The efficiency with which humans can srew up their environment boggles the mind !
Re: Ah...humans !
It's just a piece of Beagle 2 from the successful British mission a few years ago.
As you can clearly see, we were here first - therefore we call dibs.
Go find your own bit of Mars to explore NASA.
Re: @ Peter R.1
That's not the point, it's the fact that it's sitting on a thoughtlessly discarded poppadum >:(
Re: poppadum
So what you're saying is the first man on Mars is in fact Dave Lister?
<---- "Of course, lager! The only thing that can kill a vindaloo".
Out of curiosity(sic) ...
Why not zap it with the laser & view the results? Should be a good calibration tool.
Re: Out of curiosity(sic) ...
...and the exercise would prove beyond doubt the origin of the 'relic'.
Martian Uncertainty Principal
Shirley this simply demonstrates the difficulty of observing a far off planet in any reasonable detail - the very act of putting a rover in a "pristine" environment eliminates the very thing which makes it "pristine".
Of course, the ramifications of this are (in my opinion) far less dramatic than we think - it's only the types of people who leave the little protective piece of plastic attached to the screen of their clock radios for years that believe we've "ruined" mars.
I do think it highlights the need to be able to stay on top of what bits of Mars are actually bits of Mars, and what bits of Mars are actually bits of laser-wielding robot.
Re: we've "ruined" mars
aaay lad, I remember when it were all dust, sand and rubble round these parts. Nah lukit
Re: Martian Uncertainty Principal
I am serious... and don't call me Shirley.
Actually, Martian Observer effect
...just nitpicking, though. Apparently even Heisenberg was never quite sure about this.
Ah Hah!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon
It appears that we received no further transmission from the moon because Mr Cavor was successful in reproducing his amazing discovery and decided to head on out further into the solar system!
Part of a ........
Spent shot gun cartridge maybe.
Queue sounds of another round going into the breach of a pump-action, and ...
"Ere! Get orf of my land!" in a gruff Martian accent.
Re: Part of a ........
Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
Next-
Earth Shattering Kaboom.
Re: Part of a ........
Or there would be if some wabbit hadn't wun (sorry, run) off with it...
And all he wanted was a good view of Venus.
Re: Part of a ........
"Cue sounds of another round going into the breach of a pump-action, and ..."
There, fixed it for you.
That is not Mars
Mars is the Red Planet, those images are of a Grey Planet. Therefore by the powers of sheer deduction, Watson, I infer that the image is actually of the moon.
Ah-ha we have proof that the Yanks have finally landed on the moon then.
Hang on a minute, it mentions that the photographer/directors name is S Kubrick........ Something smells fishy here.
Uh ho...
It looks like part of the wrapping paper from an "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator".
Waiting for the kaboom
Who knew?
Marijuana grows on Mars. Wait, the munchies! That totally explains the poppadom.
Shurely, with it being Curiousity and all ...
... they should be sending it "Straight back down y'all, straight back down to earth"?
Shiny
The Magpie aka Curiosity is easily distracted by bling.
Proof of Water
Looks like a dead prawn/shrimp shell to me. This proves Water existed there.
Millions spent on the missions now justified.
Please, can we have more funding, now?
NASA stopping for a shiny object?
Is there a chance they hired Jack McFarland from Will& Grace?
Someone's got sharp eyes in NASA
to spot someting so small...
I'd say Rover should take off and nuke the site from orbit .... it's the only way to be sure.
I wonder if they actually did build that function in...
Nice vanilla lady voice - "Core fusion in T -20 seconds and counting".
Actually that DID look like a shell off a prawn / dried ancient cockroach / scale of a beastie.
OK, that's it
Through the despicable actions of irresponsible scientists Mars can no longer be considered an untouched, virgin, pristine environment. It will never be the same again and is hopelessly contaminated.
Now, that it is impossible to reverse the effects of this disaster we can safely go and terraform that planet any way we want!
Re: OK, that's it
Let me, or better, NASA know when you've worked out a way to move Mars to a suitable orbit. One that won't destabilise ours.
Re: OK, that's it
No need to change it's orbit. We just need to make sure all the Martian cities are powered by big'n'dirty coal fired power stations and everyone drives around in petrol/diesal powered cars without cat converters in the exhaust. Global warming can be useful :-)
Coat. Because it aint warm enough up there...yet.
Quandry
Now how is Curiosity going to find a rubbish bin to put that in?
It's a piece of a Mars Bar wrapper
Now stop messing around and get back to making sand castles already!
use the scoop to create a small hole, extend the built in hand brush, sweep said detritus into hjole, cover, label as 'martian landfill No 1', job done, out of sight out of mind.
"[it's] a shred of plastic material, likely benign"
Oh crap, I've seen that film. We're doomed!
another shitty black & white image?
Why are the most interesting images always in ultra-shit quality and black & white? I was looking at a hi-res full colour vistas the other day - why can't they give us a shot from *that* camera?
Re: another shitty black & white image?
No can do; that one's back on Earth in the TV studio. ;-)
Re: another shitty black & white image?
Sure, there you go:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00062/mcam/0062ML0284001000E1_DXXX.jpg
However, that's as close as this camera can get, I think. Which is why they gave us the clearer but mono image from the other camera instead...
We need some angles..
If they could take a shot of that object from 45 degrees right and left we could get some idea of the 3D profile - may help. If it is equipped for that, that is..
Imagine seeing ruins on mars -- that you would infer as being from the past, but which haven't even been built yet (by our hands.) Get your heads around that.
Condom wrapper. You can see the tooth marks and everything.
A windows phone
It's a good windows phone, because there isn't one on Earth!
Are they sure it's not just something stuck the the camera lense?
If that was the first and only picture they'd taken with that camera, then sure. But it's not.
Yes, they are. Did you by any chance design the alumina window on the latest iPhone? It would explain a lot.
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