Comments on: Mars, up close and personal

By: MaDeR

MaDeR — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 16:24:48 +0000

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA08816_fig1.jpg

Cool, eh?

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 01:16:07 +0000

I don’t have any issues with the comparison. It’ll be interesting in the future if they get into cProto-ing the HiRise camera, assuming it’s capable and the process isn’t patented (I only wish I were kidding on the last part)

By: cork

cork — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 20:50:43 +0000

This is my first viewing of this image and my immediate reaction were those of * skeptigirl
, looks like a big rock dropped onto some thick mud.

By: PaleoProf

PaleoProf — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 19:24:45 +0000

Hey Skeptigirl I am SOOOO not a planetary geologist but I did I quick “back of the envelope” calculation and it looks like one Earth atmosphere (14.7 psi) is equal to ABOUT 6m of rock. There is a lot of slop in that number but I really don’t think that removing the equivalent of 6m of rock in terms of pressure is going to affect the melting temp of the surface rock that much. I know there is some atmosphere on mars but I think it’s like 7mb as opposed to the Earthâ€™s 1014 so I’m just pretending it’s not there at all for this. Pressure for the onset of most change in rock in measured in Kilobars so I don’t think that one bar (atmosphere) give or take is really going to matter.
The more I think of it the more I like the whole “frozen groundwater flash melted by impact then re-freezing on the night time side of the planet” idea.
Regardless I’m sure someone has already worked this out or knows this and is enjoying watch me flail around so I’ll stop now
But you’re right, it’s a lot of fun… beats working

By: Matt J

Matt J — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:10:13 +0000

Unfortunately, even with super-high resolution pictures like the ones the MRO will beam back, the conspiracy theory nutcases still won’t be satisfied. Hell, they won’t be satisfied until they themselves are somehow on the surface of Mars, drilling through ancient rock layers to try and uncover “alien bones” or “pyramids” or “hot dog stands”. I don’t even think they’d be satisfied then.

They’ll just cry foul when newer, higher resolution pics of the “face” are shown, just like they always have, and even if every other rational human on the planet says otherwise, they will still believe it is some stupid alien artifact and not just a random hunk of rocks and dirt. Oh well. Cool comparison photos, though!

By: Kimpatsu

Kimpatsu — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 16:21:54 +0000

Clearly that’s been doctored to remove evidence of the martian cities. Err…

By: Irishman

Irishman — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 15:38:04 +0000

Lorne Ipsum said:
>1) The comparison image (and accompanying chest beating on the original HiRISE page) are more than just a way to show U.S. taxpayers what theyâ€™re getting â€” theyâ€™re also a way to poke a stick in the eye of the folks at Malin Space Science Systems. HiRISE was built by Ball Aerospace, and ever since Malin lost the competition to build the MRO camera, Malin & Ball have been taking pot-shots at each other in various venues.

Maybe, maybe not. I don’t see anything in that comparison that is unjustified. I would expect people to ask, “So how much better are the HiRISE images from what we had before?” Maybe a comparison with the cProto is desirable, but the cProto is a limited set of the MOC images, so it is fair to compare baseline images to baseline images.