Comments on: Bioastronomy

By: OntarioGal

OntarioGal — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:52:19 +0000

Wow – what a stunningly lovely image. It rivals anything I’ve seen in a museum (hey – modern art doesn’t HAVE to be ugly

I <3 nature!

By: Wag of the Tail « Barkings Of An Old Dog

Wag of the Tail « Barkings Of An Old Dog — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:36:56 +0000

[...] and the full article here Bioastronomy [...]

By: quantum cephalopod

quantum cephalopod — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:52:02 +0000

I’m pretty sure PZ would think it was a picture of pharyngeal arches.

Ahem.

As for me, I’m thinking gills.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:21:21 +0000

Not so strange. The same mathematics controls physical and biological processes. Why shouldn’t structures look similar?

A question: if astronomy is deemed a ‘superior’ science, then why are astronomers searching so hard for off-earth biological activity? Just asking…

By: Tracy M

Tracy M — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:56:40 +0000

To me it looks like a bunch of wriggling sperm. This fits into the theory that all the planets are ova ready to hatch out as giant dragons.

By: IBY

IBY — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:48:52 +0000

Yeah, no stinging tentacle crap, or any cephalopod! ^_^

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:51:07 +0000

It’s a fantastic lush image. I don’t see jellyfish tenticles like Kitty I see sperm, racing their way towards a non existant martian egg.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:44:25 +0000

Looks a lot more like erosion due to water than dunes… but I’m a dreamer.

By: Old Geezer

Old Geezer — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:43:38 +0000

@Charles Boyer:

The Martian equivalent of Gaia would be Maria

By: PsyberDave

PsyberDave — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:36:46 +0000

Timothy, thanks for the link. I read it.

Phil always did love that HiRISE image of the Phoenix lander falling through the Martian atmosphere. I liked it too, but I now have an even greater appreciation for it than before. That picture was EVEN HARDER to get than I thought, and I thought it was pretty hard to get.

It wasn’t just the case that they had to point the camera at the falling lander at the right time, which I think is impressive. They also had to align HiRISE at the perfect angle relative to the trajectory of the falling lander due to the time delay integration of the sensor array. The thought of the math involved makes my eyes roll back in my head. I’m going to try not to pass out.

I think HiRISE is a spectacular instrument and I appreciate its complexity even better now. It’s like making a three-point shot, but doing it in high heel skates on a skateboard on a greasy bowling ball. Goodness.

By: ssurtsord

ssurtsord — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:42:25 +0000

Where’s Richard Hoagland when you need him.

By: kitty

kitty — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:38:38 +0000

OK, I saw the photgraph and thought “why does Phil have sperm under a microscope?”

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:20:45 +0000

I dunno … it looks just a landscape to me … a landscape designed by H. R. Giger, that is.

By: chad the impaler

chad the impaler — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:05:32 +0000

Ha…Phil experienced Tentacledolia!!!

By: Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:57:12 +0000

What’s the Martian equivalent of Gaia?

Maybe Mars himself is the living being?

By: kuhnigget

kuhnigget — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:48:13 +0000

@ ABR:

No, no, no! The megapods were hunted to extinction by the guys in blue body suits!

(But seriously, aren’t the spots just outcroppings of bedrock?)

By: ABR.

ABR. — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:43:44 +0000

I think the green spots are the Martian equivalent of sagebrush, the food source, no doubt, of Martian megapods.

By: Timothy from Boulder

Timothy from Boulder — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:09:14 +0000

Addendum: For some details of the color filtering of the sensor, see my tutorial on Emily Lakdawalla’s blog page, http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001547/

By: Timothy from Boulder

Timothy from Boulder — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:05:21 +0000

“Is this a false color photo or does it have some enhancements? What are all the ‘green’ areas??”

As in all HiRISE color images, the image is taken in three wavelength bands (one in the red region of the spectrum, one in the blue-green, and one in the infrared) and then they are merged together by applying an appropriate color to each of the layers, usually to maximized to show salient features. So by definition, all HiRISE images are “false color.”

Whether it represents an accurate recreation of what it would look like to the human eye requires digging into the data file and finding out what color maps were applied, and even then it is difficult to say … notice that it’s very low ilumination, and that always plays havoc with the difference between a sensor image and what a human eye would perceive.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:56:10 +0000

Is this a false color photo or does it have some enhancements? What are all the ‘green’ areas??

By: Quiet Desperation

Quiet Desperation — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:54:27 +0000

Is this an orbital view of dune fields on Mars, or a close-up of tentacles on a jellyfish?

Ah! Trick question! It’s a giant jellyfish…. on MARS!