What is this??

[Jon P. Inghram]

Seriously, it's just a rock.

That area often gets bad dust storms with very high winds, if you look at the other images all the rocks in the area are very weathered.

[ZokesPro]

Well, I don't believe that those objects are anything else other than rocks, with clever shading and angles to maker you think it's something else. I'm sure you'd walk up to those objects and breath a sigh of disappointment.

[leech]

Yeah, but that doesn't explain the second image. It has a definite pattern. Two concentric circles with triangular edges.

Leech

Edit: Oops, it was the second image. The third image I posted looks just odd.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Here's a good one they missed, notice the rock in the middle.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Another thing, the area is heavily cratered, there's gonna be smashed up bits of rock everywhere.

[leech]

Granted, that's true. But still, what about that second image?

Leech

[leech]

That's an odd one. Look in the middle (this was on the RAW image page, wonder why it's like that?

Leech

[Jon P. Inghram]

Martian mice, petrified vertebrae of a large animal, muffler bearing of a flying saucer, or just a rock with a hole in it... we'll never find out.

[Brian R.]

One weight from a Martian barbell set

[Ellimist]

Originally posted by leech Yeah, but that doesn't explain the second image. It has a definite pattern. Two concentric circles with triangular edges.

Yeah, guess what - the human mind searches for patterns to find meaning in anything. Much like I could go outside and put sand-colored rocks in some sand and take high definition, yet slightly blurred images of it from a far away angle and make them seem like anything. You are finding something in nothing.


Edit: I forgot to talk about the rover's imaging capabilities:
1. Spirit does not have a video camera
2. Spirit has a still image camera
3. NASA engineers patch together stills to make a large image.
4. They have to. There is a 20 minute "lag" between sending the signal to and from Mars.
5. The black spots are just missing patches the rover did not photograph. A lot of Hubble images are like that... it is done that way to form the largest picture. Sometimes, when the picture is put out immediately, they just didn't put in the rest, or never bothered to - more important things to do.


Damn, this conversation is giving me a headache.

Yes, I have seen the .tif image and this same implication in other forums on the internet.

Originally posted by leech
Well, since supposedly a few egineers and such post on here, I was hoping for more scientific answers than "A rock" It sure as shit doesn't look like any rock I've seen, and I live near a freakin' desert!

Knowing much about logic, not an engineer yet, I have the following argument:

1. The most scientific explanation for the images you have offered is, indeed, "a stone that resides on, and perhaps partially in, the surface of mars."
2. You have never seen a rock like that before? Well, guess what. You don't live on Mars. You don't live in those conditions. If that rock is from a meteor, it will have passed through the thin martian atmosphere, wouldn't it have? You, or I, don't know how that would affect incoming debris. Regardless, this viewpoint is a common assumption by most humans that everything geologically related to space must involve meteorites... gah.
3. If they are rocks just from the surface, from normal formation and dust storms and whatnot, then it is just a rock, and given the relative blurriness and TYPES OF ROCK on Mars, of course you will not recognize it. You are not a geologist, anyway. Mars is not Earth.

That is the same problem the Moon-Hoax people had. They worked on the premise that the moon has the same properties as the Earth... gravity, how light works with the atmosphere. The implication that rocks are little pieces of metal or machines or whatever is annoying drivel.

4. Earth rocks are not the same as Mars rocks, different in composition, and history. Particularly because there obviously isn't much terraforming going on on Mars, is there?

[Ellimist]

::imitates Special Ed from Crank Yankers::
YAY! My brain found an image! YAY!

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
Another thing, the area is heavily cratered, there's gonna be smashed up bits of rock everywhere.

Now come on, you all know that is obviously a hand. There must be something going on here! Haha!!!

[TransformX]

Looks like a sasquatch's foot...
DAN, do you happen to have relatives on Mars ??

[VJ]

Don't some of those "rocks" look like Beagle-components....?

Jörg

[ZokesPro]

Originally posted by VJ
Don't some of those "rocks" look like Beagle-components....?

Jörg

Haha!

[leech]

Originally posted by Ellimist
::imitates Special Ed from Crank Yankers::
YAY! My brain found an image! YAY!



Now come on, you all know that is obviously a hand. There must be something going on here! Haha!!!

Nah, looks like a bunch of dark stuff. Explain to me then why that the object I'm referring to, with the pattern on it, why in another black and white image on Nasa's page, it reflects great amounts of light? And the thing about holes in the images.... this isn't the old Viking images were talking about.

And if you don't think that anything on Mars would be any similar to Earth, then apparently you disagree with NASA.

Look here.

Seems they want people to send in rocks. Why? It's not like they don't already have a database of everything in their computers.... or perhaps they found something they just can't quite explain....

Leech