Please take a look at the large rock in this photo and tell me what you see. I see tubes that seem to go in all different directions, one even appears to spiral.

LINK

I don't see any spirals, but I do see the tubes. Hmm... stuff like that appears in rocks on Earth, deposits of minerals that look like that... were any samples taken?

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If ignorance is bliss, why is the world so full of misery?

Looks like a terribly compressed jpeggy image of some rocks. 8-[

Compression kills!

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h00!

Could you please provide context when you post a picture, like which rover, which camera, and when? I got some of that from your filename, but it made me do some hunting.

It appears that the image you are asking about is a fragment of a composite of pictures taken around this one, by the Opportunity pancam, sol 88 (yes, a long time ago), in Fram crater.

From there others can ignore the garish colors, look at an object through different filters, maybe from other angles, understand the location and lighting, construct stereo views, and so forth.

Now that I've looked at the original, I'm a little ticked that your image seems to have more detail. To get the same size, I need to zoom the original to 350% and when I do that, all kinds of JPEG artifacts are apparent. The image you cite has less, and therefore I suspect that some processing has been done to it. It just doesn't look like the raw images.

That said, there is some apparent arch-like obejct that is pointed out, but that could just be an illusion of shadow and light. To conclude much about its real shape from the raw images would be quite Hoaglandesque. It's hard to determine what shape it really is -- and there is no right-camera view to help with stereo information.

Offhand, I don't see another view of the object, but I may look around some more to see if it appears in other images, maybe with another camera, on another day. I'll let you know.

But, so far, I am unimpressed.

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Not sure where you see the tubes. More than likely, its part of an illusion caused by light and shadow. Even if they are tubes, its more than likely a geological effect.

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This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

A hightlighted gif image of the tubes can be found here:
http://s92891281.onlinehome.us/ainimation.gif

I did not create the original image, so I really had no other information to add. I do know that it has not been "processed" as you're suggesting. I know this simply because you can open up the photo in the link you posted in photoshop and get the same results using a few of the very basic photoshop filters. It is in fact, exactly the same as the raw image.

The compression artifacts are clearly visable in other parts of the photo, what is on the rock has nothing to do with compression.

I'm sorry you're "unimpressed", may be you should go hang out at the nasa scientists forum. :roll:

It seems to me like the persons asking the questions should do the investigative legwork of identifying the original -- unless they don't know how. (Ask if you need pointers.)

The same, except processed by the Photoshop filters?

Well, I have to disagree. I think you're intrigued by compression artifacts.

Cute. And, that would be where?

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Sorry simon04, perhaps I should explain. This Board has been inundated in recent months with posters claiming all sorts of things in photos from Mars: alien bases, fossils, skulls, stingrays and so on. Many of the people making these claims have been rude and have wound up being banned. Because of this, posters here are just a little on edge when threads w/pictures about features on Mars show up. As this is a skeptic board the posters here are generally dismissive of 'odd' things in photos being anything important.

You know, we've had no fewer than a half-dozen people come into this forum, post pictures from Mars, and say have some sort of anomaly in them. They "innocently" ask for opinions, and get feedback that says there is nothing there. They then they get rude, and I wind up banning them for clearly violating the FAQ of this board.

This is a pattern that has repeated itself enough for me to know just where this thread is headed, especially after your one-liner quoted above.

Look, Simon04, this is a scientific forum. If you have a point, then make it. And back it up with evidence.

And as others have said, go out and do at the legwork first before coming here. If you think you've found something, then make an effort to at least minimally follow up on it. We're not here to do your work for you.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

#-o Sheesh, more like bad attitude, than astronomer! I was not aware that this was an exclusive forum for scientists only. I have no proof other than what I see, and I figure that is a large part of what NASA is basing it's conclusions on too.

If you don't want newbies here then maybe you should consider setting the administrative review "on" for memberships. You can then see how many papers such person has published, check credentials and determine if they are up to par.

I agree, do a little more investigating and googling. A couple of weeks ago, while brousing some raw Spirit pan cam images. I found a picture that clearly showed a pipe sticking out of a rock. I checked, I was looking at a left pan cam image. I found the corrasponding right pan cam image, put them together on the screen, the mystery was solved in less than 2 minutes. A trick of light and shadows. If I had come here and said, "golly gee, look at this." We would have had another 3 page thread of "All I see are rocks."

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Oh, verbal jousting with the BA is really gonna help things!

This looks like just another one of the threads that Dr Plait described.

Photos of equivocal origin are posted. Skeptical reviews are forthcoming. Verbal abuse follows.

Why bring this here? BABB is know as a scientific forum.

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Olsen the moderator.

I never said this was for scientists only. I said this was a scientific forum.

Sarcasm will get you nowhere here, as will trying to pick a fight. Read the FAQ. I welcome newbies here, on a trial basis. Violate the rules and you are gone. If someone comes in here and acts the way you do, their welcome becomes thin. I suggest re-thinking your approach. Open inquiry is welcome.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

HEY...everyone is welcome here, but if you're going to start talking about "tubes" on Mars...then you're going to have to show us how you've come to that conclusion...and if you start getting "snippy" when you don't get the response (from the board) you're "looking" for...well, I guess you won't be staying long.

Just for the "record"...I don't see any "tubes".

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

nope... no tubes. nor do i see anything that i haven't seen formed naturally in rocks on earth. come on, people, are we so urbanised that we think that any round, square or slightly symmetrical form has to be created by an intelligence? i would suggest to those that are hyper-enhancing every little picture of Mars they can find to find fossils, tubes, boxes, statues or rugs to go out and have a hike in the mountains somewhere. then tell me again how artificial these things are... :roll:

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Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -- Groucho Marx

At the risk of repeating what the BA has said...

There is no requirement for being a professional scientist. But as a science oriented forum. In science there is little concern for what you or anyone else thinks, but rather what you can provide to back it up. And if you have a hypothesis, it up to you to provide evidence for it.

You have given us an extensively processed image and have failed to provide the context.

You have failed to provide basic evidence. And indeed without information of what this is supposed to be a picture of, it does not even a good question.

In analysing what is in a photo there one always wants the original. If it a film camera then one wants the original negatives. If it is a digital camera then one wants the original image unprocessed in any way whatsoever. Any processing changes what is shown, and with thousands of images and people with imagination, someone will find something even if nothing is really there. One also wants context: when and where was the picture taken, how the picture was taken, etc.

The image you have provided has been highly processed. First of all, there is no color in the real Mars rover images. The processing to add color to this image can add many artifacts. What makes it worse is that the file name suggests that color was not created using multiple images of the same thing through different filters. This image as also been compressed in some way at a very minimum. And how can any of us rule out other kinds of processing?

What you need to do is to match this image with the original image. And then we have something work with. Every image that Spirit and Opportunity take are online.

You might also consider that many people on this board (and other boards as well) routinely examine raw images from the rovers themselves. If there was any tubes on rocks, it would have been noted by someone on this board. This alone is a common sense reason to suppose that the tubes have no basis in reality.

First off, simon04, welcome to the board. We will be happy to try to help analyze the photo. However, for us to help you, we need you to help us. See, we need you to point out everything you know about the image, and point us to the spot where you found it so we can find out whatever there is to find out on where it came from. That is how pictures are investigated. Showing us a marked up jpeg or even gif does not allow us to find the answer, it merely gives us a fuzzy image to decypher. Decyphering fuzzy images may be what Rorschach tests do, but the rest of us would like to approach this a little more scientifically.

Second, please take a moment to relax and consider the responses. So far people have asked you to provide more information about where you obtained the image, what processing has occurred to it, and to ask you to do the leg work of tracking down the original. That is only fair - you're the one with the question. Also realize that, as has been noted, we've been flooded with people popping up here with fuzzy pictures and then telling us (a) do we see the same outlandish object they do? (b) we don't, we must be idiots or evil. So consider how your approach might resemble the same behavior from a half-dozen other folks. If you get quick, curt responses that don't seem like they took long to evaluate, consider this is a pattern we've recognized and not a brush off.

Third, there's no need to get snippy. Someone asked you for more information about the image. Then it was commented that the specific details you are pointing out are not distinct, and are probably either jpeg artifacts or misinterpretation of the resolution of the image. You were not attacked, only that your claim does not have much evidence. Remember, you asked us what we see, if we see what you do. Someone answered negatively, that's no reason to get upset.

Fourth, and this to everyone in this thread, take a deep breath, step back, and chill out. Just because we've had a string of nincompoops doesn't mean we should jump this guy with a two by four. I kinda wish a couple of those folks hadn't been banned because there were more things to be said. Instead of getting hostile at the first testy reply, calmly explain your point and try to let the situation diffuse. Prodding the guy for not understanding what we've already been over a dozen times is not the way to react. Give him a chance.

Now, about the image. I looked at the original provided by 01101001. Looking at it and both processed images you supply, I see the same thing. What you highlight as tubes does not stand out to me as anything other than selective interpretation of the lights and shadows on the texture of the rock face in an image at the limit of useful resolution. We've seen a lot of that here lately.

I say processed because the image is in color, with odd colors like blues and greens and pinks. Also, the image is "clearer" than the original from NASA when enlarged to the same size. This suggests filtering and processing was done to the image. That type of processing can enhance existing features and bring out details, but more frequently (especially when working with jpegs) it just creates patterns of lines that do not really exist. This is the nature of processing filters. They compare pixels to their neighbors and depending on the filter change the values to either match or contrast with their neighbors. This as a tendency to make lines blocky, for instance. It can also create lines where two non-connected points come close to each other. Combine that with the original image quality of the jpeg and you have a recipe for digital artifacts that are not real.

That's an important point. That means that you do not explicitly know what processing was done, what enhancement was added. It also probably means that you do not know the source. That's fair to point out. It also helps us address your question. If you cannot state what was done to the image, though, then you cannot state that no processing was done. Simple logic.

But you just contradict yourself. Photoshop filters is image processing. If it takes photoshop filters to come up with something similar, this strongly suggests the image was indeed processed. Of course, the definition of "processed" may be part of the problem. What do you mean by processed? Most of us here will include anything that alters the pixel content of the image. Contrast is processing. Colorizing is processing. Converting from the rover raw data to the jpeg JPL posted is processing. Enlarging in your photo viewer is not processing, but running an edge filter is processing.

Okay, now that we've all taken a deep breath, let's try this again.