Face on Mars Gets a Make-Over 232
Alien54 writes "ESA's Mars Express has obtained images of the Cydonia region, site of the famous 'Face on Mars.' using the High Resolution Stereo Camera. After multiple attempts to image the Cydonia region from April 2004 until July 2006 were frustrated by altitude and atmospheric dust and haze, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board Mars Express finally obtained, on 22 July, a series of images that show the famous 'face' on Mars in unprecedented detail, with a ground resolution of approximately 13.7 metres per pixel."
Primary Goal of the Mission (Score:5, Informative)
But seriously, it is the first goal of the Mars Orbiter [esa.int]: I guess I would rather see something more than just regular images come from a mission. Right now, I can see all these things on the ESA's site that help the user see all these pictures of Mars but I don't see any maps of mineral composition, atmospheric movement, etc. I've seen pictures, these are some great high quality images with 3D detail that are great screensaver material. But, for the love of science, when do we get the rest of the data from the mission -- you know, the stuff that is, like, going to alter the way we view Mars? Is the public never going to see these results?
Re:Primary Goal of the Mission (Score:5, Funny)
Thats a very broad brush
Go on, say something in European.
Re:Primary Goal of the Mission (Score:4, Funny)
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"Abortions for some-- miniature American flags for others!"
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*ahem*
"Stupid Americans!"
There you go.
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"Le Americans, they steenk!"
"By yiminy, ve surrender!"
How's that? I know I have a bit of an accent, but I think I can be understood.
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Re:Primary Goal of the Mission (Score:4, Funny)
Stand against forced spelling reform!
That is all.
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This is generally true in the sciences, and may be a result of the ESA's scientific mandate.
It makes it easier that every word is an English word: "Pukka sushi compadre" is an English sentence. That's one reason why English has so many more words than most language: we borrow words from other languages with wild abandon (and aren't very good about giving them back.)
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No.
Although popular with dozens of people in Europe, it's also spoke by one or two other people elsewhere. There is an esperanto internet TV station in Brazil. Last time I checked, Brazil wasn't part of the Europe mainland ( in the same way that the UK isn't )
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Well, you know that that's a bitch.
Chris Mattern
Other cool facts about the mission (Score:5, Interesting)
Mars Express contains 7 different scientific instruments and, amongs other things, it has already:
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No they don't.
The english units sent by the mars rovers are encapsulated in metric units, and converted back on earth.
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discovered aurorae on Mars;
Did anyone besides me find the weird parallel cracks on the extreme right side of the picture in the middle more intersting than the lame-assed aurorae?
Re:Primary Goal of the Mission (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_on_mars [wikipedia.org]
I remember the 1998 Mars Surveyor pictures. I wasn't surprise, but who can say honestly that he was not a bit disapointed ?
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A face huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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What strikes me about the pictures from the Mars Express is how weird they look - they look kind of artificial - like they've been hand-drawn/painted by a 1950's space artist. They don't look like a picture if you nkow what I'm trying to say. The colours are very "rich" and unreal looking - difficult to explain - it might be a result of the prcoessing they've gone through.
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But take a look at http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/marsexpress/30 8-230906-3253-6-3d2-Cydonia_H.jpg [esa.int] and you'll see what I'm talking about. What I think they've done is really enhance the contrast of the picture. The colouring still reminds me of old 1950's style drawings of craters and the like.
I wasn't trying to imply the pictures are fake at all, by the way.
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What color should it be? The color you would see if you were standing on the martian surface, or the color the camera sees? The color the martian surface would have if it were here on the earth? Normalized for some "baseline" spectrum? Thing is, pictures are nearly always adjusted for optimal contrast and such. When scientists want to analyze the "color" of something, they don't grab a photo
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Since the other pictures are anaglyphs (the sort of image that looks 3D when you use that red-blue 3D glasses), one can guess that they already processed the images to extract topological info... So a 3D render, to examine Mars surface details, seems logical to me.
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From the FAQ...
Yes, the images have been processed but that is quite normal. We are not taking colour photographs, we have to combine the different colour channels which requires processing time. Each of the four colour channels operate with a filter of different wavelength (red, green, blue and infrared) and produce data sets which have to be combined and calculated on to a digital elevation model.
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The original source is multiple band photographs and height information.
As the "top down" view cannot really present that information, those are renderings using the height-field and texture data the probe collected.
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Nah. Not OUR governments. They'd never lie about something like that.
Maybe I'll feel less trusting when my tinfoil hat gets back from the cleaners.
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hand painted results? (Score:2)
Now you've done it. You've given the tin foil hat crowd an excuse to say the NASA or ESA or whomever has altered the photos to erase ev
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The upcoming Queer Eye for the Red Planet Probe is going to use an eyebrow plucking robot and deploy an "chic hat" so it can be the hip, modern face of Mars.
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You think this will quiet the conspiracy nuts? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's no face... (Score:5, Funny)
The world needs to know!
Re:You think this will quiet the conspiracy nuts? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:You think this will quiet the conspiracy nuts? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the same with anyone who has already made their decision without the need for evidence - more evidence doesn't do a thing to them.
I have a feeling you could take some of those people who think NASA faked the moon landing to the moon IN PERSON and they would still conclude that it's an externally imposed delusion, because they are starting from the basic premise that they are right. Facts will need to fit that preconception. Same thing here.
Yabbut... (Score:2)
rj
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Anyone with a few minutes to waste (and I do mean waste) can browse Richard Hoagland's web site (enterprisemission.com) and see just how true this statement is.
Twenty years ago, before high-resolution photos of Mars were available, Hoagland got a lot of mileage out of the low-res Cydonia photos. I remember that he even wrote a couple of fairly serious speculative
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Sadly, he's gone now. Erosion and nature, rather than aliens, took the famous face in the rocks away from us in May of 2003.
Side note: I was there just months before it fell.
Oh, you were, were you? Perhaps we need a little *security* around here, if people like you are going to use psionics to wreck our famous national-treasures-if-you-look-at-'em-from-the-rig ht-angle-in-the-right-light.
ROSSSSWEELLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
However they analyze it (Score:4, Funny)
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What face? (Score:2, Insightful)
Noooooooo!!!11eleven1! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh wait, that's a good thing.
Errrm, nevermind.
The "other" face on Mars (Score:2, Informative)
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Today's vocabulary word is "pareidolia" (Score:5, Informative)
Please excuse me, I have to return to searching my toast for the Virgin Mary now.
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QED!
Not just on Mars (Score:3, Funny)
Link to the old, low-res version (Score:5, Funny)
Google? (Score:2)
photoshop here we come (Score:2)
I recall that some nut managed to 'decifer' an entire city region buried around the so called face.
I remember the very first time this image appeared (yes, I'm that old), there was a very interesting comment in the magazine at the time, being
The Arlia are gonna be awfully mad... (Score:2)
(It's a book reference, just curious how many on
Those rovers better deliver (Score:2)
There are many faces on Earth too (Score:5, Interesting)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-16.341133,-71.965
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This doesn't show up in Nasa's World Wind program, so either it's an accident of smoke, etc from a fire or something, or else NASA didn't get a chance to manipulate all of the photos
It's obviously a face (Score:3, Funny)
Are we even looking at the same picture?
Look, on the near side is the chin, up from there is the nose, up from there are the other two noses and to the right of these is the telepathy patch.
You people are just too cynical for your own good.
Dr Who knows (Score:2)
(Oh bite me, everyone else got in their scifi refs.)
in other news.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The images aren't easy (Score:3, Informative)
Long live the face (Score:2)
I hope some "national historical monument" types don't want to preserve the face in pristine glory. As the most kitsch location on the planet I'd really like to think that someday there will be dual resort and entertainment domes in the eyes.
Not obligatory at all (Score:2)
All your face belong to us.
That is all.
Still looks convincingly face-like to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
It also looks at least as much like a face as human-constructed faces that have been ravaged by time, such as the Sphinx [guardians.net], or Michael Jackson.
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The face is small potatos (Score:2)
Look at the pattern made by Olympus Mons and the three mountains near it.
They form an isosceles triangle. The three mountains are the base, almost equidistant from each other, in a straight line. The distance from Olympus to the middle of the three mountains is the same as the distance between the outer two of the three mountains.
Is this all due to chance?
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1) human beings are programmed to see faces.
2) Yuo can find the same type of geological phenomenon here on earth.
From the Woam of the West(I think thats what she is called.) This is a formation that looks exactly like a woman wearing a dress and apron. to the "fingure for the airforce".Loking at the woman from the west from the back, it looks exactly like someone giving the fingure. If I remember correctly, you can see this while traveling on the 'Herford highway'.
3) I can find many triangles that are r
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If the person in charge of NASA said that they'd be fired, and rightly so.
Yeah? Show me.
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Ask the Moche People (Score:2, Informative)
The only way we can tell for sure that these aren't articificial is actually to go there and see for ourselves. You cannot dismiss the apparently face-like features of the formation as mere tricks of the light or simulacra until you've discounted all the alternatives. As we cannot determine it's not an articificial structure from mere imagery, we have to go there and investigate in person (not that is gonna be forthcoming anytime soon).
An earthly comparison
In Peru there's a place that is dominated by
Looks like western LA suburbs (Score:2)
Darn! (Score:2)
Face or not a face? (Score:2)
Can you name the movie reference?
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Re:Well Done (Score:4, Informative)
Secondly, its an orbiting space platform and has nothing to do with rovers (unless you mean the ill fated Beagle 2 which was carried on this mission).
But having corrected all that, you are right its a job well done.
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1) that really does bear striking resemblence to a face. Not perfect but just an odd rock formation.
2) where are the other mountians? It's like hiawii. a (mostly)lonely mountian in a sea of flat. While there is precendant it is an oddity.
Re:It's human nature... (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, if you get the lighting right and go from just-so an angle, even Keith Richards seems to have a human face.
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Re:It's human nature... (Score:4, Funny)
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NASA - the hitherto deemed purveyor of all things space, to the exclusion of all other space agencies.
Suggestion to RTFA. Oh wait, slashdot. Ability to read not required.
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I was thinking the same thing. It still looks like it could be an artificial structure that has been weather be erosion and possibly suffered a structural collapse (or was exposed to a powerful explosion) on one side. It still has an oddly shaped bilateral symmetry, straight lines, and still does look like a[n] (alien?) face.
I'm not saying that's what I think it is, I'm just saying the case is definately not closed. It won't be closed until we actually land people there and investigate closely.
Still, t
I was going to say that myself... (Score:2)
Difficult to do that when the "interesting topographical feature" is on Mars.
Again, not trying to espouse any "conspiricy theories here", but if that formation was on Earth, I'd be thinking it could
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