HiRISE, the awesomely cool camera orbiting Mars, released this very interesting picture of a smallish impact crater on the planet:
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The crater is about 300 meters across (as usual, click the picture to embiggenatrize it), and is covered with boulders. That indicates it’s pretty fresh, because after time the boulders get eroded or blown away (though some are 10 meters across!). You see the splash pattern around it too, again indicating relative youth.
When I zoomed in on the crater, though, and took a look, I was surprised to see it looking back at me!
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Obviously, it’s my mind playing tricks on me, because it doesn’t look like Jesus.
If you want to keep up with HiRISE and all the amazing pictures it takes, your best bet is to follow it on Twitter. That’s how I found this image. And speaking of Mars, this week’s Carnival of Space is being held at Martian Chronicles.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Phil, what the heck did you try to draw?
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
CENTAF blocks Flickr.
I can’t see the pretty pictures. The HiRISE picture was pretty cool though!
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Republicans on Mars.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I will gladly pay you Martis dies for a hamburger today.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
The image looks high-passed to me. The “freshness” of the rubble may be an illusion.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Ehhh, is it Gossamer?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_(Looney_Tunes)
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Ehhhhh, now why didn’t that open parenthesis get caught by the link-detector-machinery?
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
It’s… a DINOSAUR FOOTPRINT!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
It’s Tintin!
With a pipe!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
It’s obviously the KoolAid guy!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
So have you suddenly gone Hindi?
JC
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I don’t see it either. A dancing elephant?
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
It’s clearly Ganesha. That’s enough evidence for me, I’m becoming a Hindu.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I no longer have a boring ol’ “left mouse button”.
I have an Embiggenatron!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
It’s definetly an “Otti-fant” (some people here who know Otto Waalkes?
)!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
It looks like a face from an Ukiyo-e print.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:32 pm
John Merrick?
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
What I like about the photo is that people who know what’s going on will immediately see a big hole in the ground. If you stare at the picture carefully you will see the hole as a bulge instead. Of course it can’t be a bulge unless someone touched up the image. In this picture you can see that the light is coming from the left side and illuminating the raised portion of the rim, forming a bright arc just before the shadow in the hole. You can even see the shadow of the rim on the other side of the image so there’s a progression from bright-dark-bright-dark. If anyone can figure out how that pattern could be produced with a hill rather than a hole, let me know.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Ummm… a fish giving passers-by the ol’ “come on”?
A frustrated tadpole?
A map of Alaska after global warming is done with it?
A senior picture of Caspar the Friendly Ghost?
I’m so confused…
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Orcs were originally from Mars? Whaa…?
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
More cool stuff from Mars:
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Satellite_Antenna_Enables_Discovery_Of_Buried_Glaciers_On_Mars_999.html
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
It’s clearly Ridley from Metroid, with his tail curled under him. Click my name for a link.
Samus save us!
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Anyone can see that’s Richard C. Hoagland
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Sarah Palin on a bad hair day?
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
looks like an elephant
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Clearly Cthulhu
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Dr. Phil Plait:
For those of you, like me, who can’t be bothered to join “Twitter”, you can get the latest news from HiRISE via RSS news feed (that’s how I found out about that image on 22 January, 2009) at this URL:
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/togo/rss.php
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I think Phil needs to take a break from writing about paneidolia. His imagination is starting to get the best of him. Cool crater, though.
Clear skies, Alan
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
That’s a great crater. I’d like to see a blimp investigate that area. Rovers might have trouble getting around the debris, if it is thick.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
looks edo period to me. martian shunga?
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
It’s a Martian cephalopod! Someone alert PZ!
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
MARS HAS GOPHERS!!!!!
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
The Dark Mark! The Death Eaters are on Mars!
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I disavow any knowledge of gophers on Mars, today or in the future.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Does anyone understand what Phil’s purple outline represents?
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Pffft! You all have got it wrong. This is what that crater looks like:
A male White-fronted Capuchin
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:38 pm
It’s George W. Bush, obviously.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:34 am
«bønez_brigade»:
I’ve had similar problems when I first started posting URL links on this blog, several months ago.
For some reason, the system there at Discover does not recognize URL’s with parentheses and, consequently, cuts it short. The only way to get around that is to either ‘quote’ the entire URL within double-quotation marks and place it between the appropriate HTML tags with a ‘keyword’ as the link, e.g.:
<a href=”BloodyAwkwardURL.com” target=”_blank”><CLICK HERE</a>
or, if you can’t be bothered with all that, incorporate TinyURL.com into the links/toolbar of your web-browser and it will simplify the awkward URL into a more managable one; then just post that one instead.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:55 am
it’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster! it’s plain to see that Mars has been touched with His Noodly Appendage! ARRRRRR!
January 24th, 2009 at 2:20 am
That impact looks exactly like a spoon of flour that’s been plopped into the middle of a big bowl of flour.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Andromeda,
RAmen.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Heretics! Infidels! Of course you can see Jesus in the crater. You’ve got the hair flowing off to the left, the beard line forming into the mouth and moustache, and Him looking off to the left (Is He telling us he’s a lefty, I think so). I call for a holy war upon the unbelievers. Let The Truth be spread far and wide.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:17 am
I was confused too at first. But, after looking at it for a day, I realized that what I think Phil has done, in his inimitable style, is take a photo of nothing and do exactly what RCH does. That is to draw lines on the picture and claim it is something it is not. If that is true, I love it. If I am wrong I will do fifteen “hail Copernicuses” to atone. Thanks Phil and keep up the great posts. Maybe I’m ruining the fun and everyone else has already figured this out.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Why is it that most of the impact craters are near circles. (Which I assume happens when the object drops straight in). Do we have impact craters which are, say like a long ellipse.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Phil – I think that you are becoming overly fixated (is that redundant?) on this whole “images that look like religious items” issue. Give it a rest and get back to what you are good at. ASTRONOMY. Thanks
January 24th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Tim: Nope.
January 24th, 2009 at 10:41 am
@Bharat:
Most craters are circles because when the impactor hits, it explodes. Don’t think of it “drilling” into the surface so much as hitting and exploding. Thus, a circle. That being said, there are a small number of craters that show an elliptical shape, thought to result from impactors coming in at extremely shallow angles (<5 degrees from horizontal).
January 24th, 2009 at 10:52 am
@Phil:
Nah, it’s Mars expressing its opinion of pareidolia. It looks to me like a left hand (tilted to the left about 30 degrees) giving us the bird.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:17 am
That is obviously the Gorn with a rock in his hand.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:20 am
“If you stare at the picture carefully you will see the hole as a bulge instead.”
I have to stare very carefully to NOT see craters as bulges.
Makes Mercury look like it has a bad case of measles.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
No–it’s still Jesus. Just like this one:
http://www.eyetricks.com/jesus.htm
Gaze at the crater, then look away (preferably at an image of Jesus) and you’ll see a perfect image of the Shroud of Turin. . . or something.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
No–it’s still Jesus. Just like this one:
http://www.eyetricks.com/jesus.htm
What you do is gaze at the crater for 30 seconds, then look away (preferably at an image of Jesus), and you’re sure to see an unmistakable likeness of the Shroud of Turin. . .or something.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
@Phil’s response to Tom: ROFLMAO!!!!
January 25th, 2009 at 5:37 am
UK readers of a certain age will surely recognise the unmistakable silhouette of Billy the Fish, the half-man, half-fish goalkeeper for Fulchester Utd (from Viz.)
Do I take it that some supernaturalists are seriously claiming that their $deity has manifested in this image, somehow? Let me guess which country in the world they could be in. Hmmm…
January 28th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Looks like Slimer to me! Who ya gonna call?!?