The Mars Express picture ESA published this week shows two geometric shapes! Two triangular pyramids (tetrahedrons) which are partly covered with sand and dust. Exactly the same type of pyramid shapes like those seen on pictures of the Cydonia- and Elysium region!

Just look at the pictures:

Images deleted by The Bad Astronomer. It appears Paulo is upset I banned him, and switched the pix at his site.

sounds interesting.

Why is this so interesting? Geometric formations occour in nature too, y'know...

Say hello to Richard. :roll:

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Ask him if he's found the rest of the car to go with his engine block!

I'll see your three-sided pyramids and raise you several octagons and hexagons...

Ah nostalgia! Giants causway if i'am not mistaken. Went there as a kid.

=D>

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

Don't forget flagstone.
Gee, long road-like strips of stone broken up into nearly perfectly fit rectangles under the water. Is it a roadway to the lost underwater city of Atlantis, or is it just a natural outcropping of stone that breaks in interesting patterns? You be the judge.

(and no, its not a roadway to the lost underwater city of Atlantis)

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But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Oh boy.

I wish someone would take pictures of the Earth from orbit, make the same kind of wild assumptions, and then identify the ACTUAL 'structures' cited in the orbital pictures.

See how many of them are actual pyramids, and how many are just natural geological formations.

Wait, can't do that, it would invalidate too many pices of ancient Martian real estate...

Well, I have to agree with you there. "They" look just like the wind-blown hills seen elsewhere on Mars...nothing artificial about them.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Ever heard of the Matterhorn, old chap?

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"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

The wind-blown hills you're talking about are a bit strange: They seem to exist for more than 25 years (photographed by the Vikings in the 70's and by Mars Global Surveyor more recently) and they are 5 to 10 kilometres wide. That's huge when the structures show straight lines, edges and perfect symmetrical shapes which is very unusual for wind-blown hills or sand dunes.

Just an advice: Visit the ESA website and study the High Resolution-picture in detail and measure the sides of the tetrahedron-shapes. You'll notice that the two tetrahedrons are different in size but have exactly the same shape and have both three sides of the same length. If Mother nature is responsible for this, she must have used a ruler and a calculator!

The wind-blown hills you're talking about are a bit strange: They seem to exist for more than 25 years (photographed by the Vikings in the 70's and by Mars Global Surveyor more recently) and they are 5 to 10 kilometres wide. That's huge when the structures show straight lines, edges and perfect symmetrical shapes which is very unusual for wind-blown hills or sand dunes.

Just an advice: Visit the ESA website and study the High Resolution-picture in detail and measure the sides of the tetrahedron-shapes. You'll notice that the two tetrahedrons are different in size but have exactly the same shape and have both three sides of the same length. If Mother nature is responsible for this, she must have used a ruler and a calculator!

Jason Thompson,

If would be strange if the structures were NOT covered with sand and dust, simply because of the sand- and dust storm climate of Mars.
Secondly, do you know the recently discovered huge pyramids of Caral in Peru? For thousands of years people believed they were just hills, but scientists discovered they were huge pyramids covered with sand, dust and vegetation after thousands of years.

There are so many stories like these: The recently discovered pyramids in Italy and China are also good examples of huge ancient structures covered by sand and dust... but the people always believed they were just hills.

And then just one question for you: You do know that the pyramids of Giza in Egypt were built with 70-ton stones and lifted up to a height of more than 100 metres? Why should a civilization that is capable of doing that not be able to travel to Mars and build pyramids there?

Frankly, I find the nearby valley to be more interesting. It looks like a lot of hot springs here on Earth. Anybody know if that's just an effect of the processing or what's going on there?

Not really, given the vertical range of the topography on Mars.

Vegetation being the key word. Biomass is good at covering stuff for hundreds of years without detection - dust is not.

Potential Energy = Mass X g X Height.

So 70-tons to 100 metres = 68.67 MegaJoules.

But to get something to orbit takes more energy than that - 1 kg in orbit represents 3500 Joules, so 70 tons would be 245 MegaJoules, and that's just to LEO, you need more energy again to get to mars orbit and more to get to the martian surface.

And that's just energy, it ignores the technology level required.

Ahh... Because the ancient Egyptions didn't have SPACE TRAVEL?

You are correct that there are thousands of features on Mars & elsewhere that haven't been PROVEN to be of natural origin. But to come to a conclusion that they are artifacts of intelligent life is taking a HUGE leap. There are plenty of landforms on Earth that formed to various shapes by natural causes (basaltic columns, mesas in Monument Valley, etc). You are coming to the Fox Mulder/I WANT TO BELIEVE conclusion because it is fun, not because it is the explanation that best fits the available evidence.

Dancar

Dancar,

What is that, what you call available evidence? Do you realize you got exactly the same available evidence like NASA and ESA? ... I mean:

Pictures? .................. yes, pictures, that's the only available evidence, that's how poor the evidence really is!

You can do the same thing like NASA and ESA: Make your own interpretation of what you see. Never forget: People from NASA or ESA also never have been to Mars, just like you and me.

By the way: I'm specialized in pyramids all over the world, it isn't a huge leap at all. If you really KNOW something about the construction of pyramids built on earth, it really isn't hard to imagine that the same people (or aliens?) could have reached Mars. Read some serious scientific literature about pyramids and you know what I'm talking about.

I WANT TO BELIEVE? It's fun? What are you talking about? It isn't fun at all! I'm damn serious!
And take off your sunglasses! You see two tetrahedron-shaped triangular pyramids on the surface of Mars! Take a ruler, make a study of the details. You'll discover that all sides have the same lenght, and the two tetrahedrons have exactly the same shape!

It's YOU who WANTS TO BELIEVE. You want to believe in an almighty human race that's in the middle of the universe in which no aliens do exist. Wake up!
And that's fun. For YOU! To believe in yourself as the center of the universe!

Every single little voice that is saying to you: "May be you're not the centre of the universe!" is a threath to you.

Terrible to be you.

Two points to consider:

1) The two tetrahedral features appear to be conspicuously non-natural in appearance. I defy anyone to find me a graphic depicting a naturally occuring hill of the same magnitude with such perfectly linear shoulders as these. Don't try to tell me they are equivalent to the Giant's Causeway formation which are on a completely different scale of magnitude.

2) There appears to be standing water in this formation at Hellas Basin. I tend to agree with Tuckerfan in that it looks like our own hotsprings. Why does the accompanying scientific commentary only state that the formation is evidence of water erosion in the past? Sure, but what about the water sitting there right now?

1) Linear features? Near-geometrical shapes? Okay, how about the Matterhorn?



2) Are you saying that all dark things are water? If so, there's a lot of water on the moon....

I dunno, the one on top doesn't look like a whole lot to me. Of the two, that's much less defined as any shape other than...well...irregular. The one on the botton is a more defined pattern but it doesn't look like a pyramid of any kind to me. The ridges are all uneven and top portion seems to have a more gentle slope. It's just a recognizeable pattern, humans are good at finding them.

I must be bored. Anyway, let's look at those pyramids and their ridge lines, shall we?



Not exactly a [i]regular[/i[ geometric shape.... Note also the rather large impact craters. Remember, each pixel is 12m across. Figure out for yourself the energy released in such an impact and then ask yourself if you've ever heard of an artifical structure that can withstand an impact that big.

The same applies to the second formation:

Wait, perfectly linear shoulders? Triangular pyramid shapes?
Funny, when I download the high res stuff, and trace the boarders out myself, I don't see pyramids. I see naturally occuring shapes that just happen to have roughly three sides, and human minds trying to force a pattern onto things they don't understand.

I'm sure if I look though enough of these pictures I'll find some geological features that look like a big smiley face, or an alien flipping us the bird. Doesn't mean ancient martians were cracking jokes about our mammas, its just our tendancy to see patterns. After all, go to almost any cavern and you're virtually garunteed to find an outcropping that looks like Abe Lincoln, or some other famous person. Doesn't mean it is, its just coincidence.

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But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Alright, after looking at a close up of the high res graphic I can see more irregularities in the formations and it would be irresponsible to use the words "perfectly linear". That being said, it is hard to understand how they could be formed. Unlike, the Matterhorn, they are not part of a greater range of mountains exhibiting similar features such as fracturing angles of a particular type of rock matrix. Sand? Perhaps ... but this would mean that there is virtually no variation in the prevailing wind direction.

The dark features. I am not saying that there must be water there because these features are dark. I am saying there is water there because it looks as if there is water there. What else does it look like to you? If you blow up the high res graphic you can actually see beachlike features.

Taken a look at Aires Rock (or whatever the hell the Political Correct nonsense renamed it) in Australia lately? You know, the frickin huge mountain of rounded stone on an otherwise flat, dirt plain? Its not a part of any other geological feature, but its there non-the-less.
I hope you are just using the wrong tense by mistake. There may have been water there at one point in time. It does indeed look like there might have been, but it is not there now.

Liquid water simply can't exhist on the surface of Mars, the atmosphereic pressure is too low, and it is too cold. What doesn't immediantly evaporate, freezes, then sublimes. Also, don't forget, these are not truecolor images (at least I don't think they are). These dark spots could be an artifact of how the image was composited together, not because there are big blue stains on the surface of Mars.

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But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

It's Ayers Rock, our indigenous counterparts refer to it as Uluru...

Thank you, my spelling isn't exactly award winning.
Although one of my favorite cartoons as a kid was about a couple of magic koalas that used Ayers Rock as a portal to some sort of anthropomorphic floaty universe (was called The Noozles).

Back on topic though, to my knowlege, there is nothing else around Ayers Rock that could explain how it came to be there. It couldn't have fallen from they sky, as nothing that size could have survived re-entry intact, especially without leaving a crater the size of the continent. However, it is there.

Aka, you don't always need surrounding geographical features that "blend" something into the terrain. Sometimes it just pops out of nowhere and sits there, defying all attempts to explain it away.

*Now watch somebody come along and give me a 10 page paper on how Ayers Rock got there and why it makes perfect sense*

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But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

A beach, on mars! now *THAT* would get colonisation going within years...huge funds would be provided by massive, commercial travel agencies! WE ARE GOING TO MARS G...ow wait , you said if you blow up the graphic.. hm.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

To quote the old McDonald's commercials, "Hey, it could happen."

After all, that new Queen Mary 2 super-luxury liner probably cost more than a manned mission to Mars would.

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But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion