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Showing Articles for: Face On Mars Total Articles: 34 Newest: Jan 25, 2008 |
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Are the multispectral IR images released by the Mars Odyssey THEMIS team being properly constructed? Rochus Boerner, our freelance reporter at ASU, offers his analysis on that issue and the evidence of diversity in Cydonia's mineral composition.
It is still an open issue whether the officially released image of Cydonia (2002072A) from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, available on this official NASA website at Arizona State University, is the best image available. Here is our latest update to this controversy.
[Original Fake Data Article En Espanol] Publicó la NASA datos de baja resolución y con ruido en la página web de la misión Mars Odyssey, ocultando a sabiendas los datos "reales"?
Is NASA capable of lying to the public? Did NASA get caught in a lie regarding the first images taken of the "Face on Mars" by the Viking mission back in 1976? Rochus Boerner -- a freelance reporter in the field at ASU and a new addition to our staff -- offers this analysis.
“Face on Mars” researcher Richard Hoagland might not win a popularity contest at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but he has legions of fans in cyberspace — and more than 150 of them sounded off to Cosmic Log over the weekend about the latest flap over infrared imagery from Mars’ Cydonia region.
I ran into some flak from fans of Martian enigmas and the Enterprise Mission, mostly because I included a lighthearted image of a Mars mesa with Enterprise skipper Richard Hoagland’s face superimposed.
The most prominent boosters of Martian enigmas such as the “Face on Mars” have produced photos that they say provide evidence of mysterious buried city-style structures on the Red Planet — but the origins of the photos turn out to be just as murky a mystery. The controversy came to a head Thursday night, when the Enterprise Mission, a Web site focusing on the enigmas in the Martian region of Cydonia, posted false-color views of the Martian “cityscape.” Enterprise’s captain, author/researcher Richard Hoagland, said the photos were true infrared renderings from the thermal imager on NASA’s orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
New research by investigators for the Enterprise Mission (www.enterprisemission.com), a private, not-for-profit space science research organization, has revealed overwhelming evidence of ancient, artificial structures on Mars. Working with recently released daytime infrared imaging of the Cydonia region of the planet Mars, a team of independent investigators from around the world has uncovered clear and unmistakable evidence of a massive, “city-like grid structure” just beneath the dusty surface of this northern Martian desert. In addition, individual buildings the size of city blocks have been revealed that display unambiguous evidence of architectural design.
NASA's Mars Odyssey continues to churn out detailed imagery of the Martian surface. A just released photo shoot in infrared of the so-called "Face on Mars" has allowed more interpretation of the landform and the surrounding terrain. Odyssey's picture taking provides a broad perspective of the landscape and geology of the Cydonia region -- home of the "face" -- showing numerous knobs and hills that have been eroded into a remarkable array of different shapes. According to Arizona State University scientists, the "big picture" view of the Cydonia region yields a kind of slap in the face to those touting the feature as carved out by previous Mars homeowners.
Take the face on Mars. The first photograph of this bumpy mesa was snapped by the Viking Orbiter, and released by NASA to the public on July 31, 1976. It is an intriguing image, and certainly does look like a face. In fact, since then, this "face" on Mars has inspired a whole library of books and groups of true believers that now find "evidence" of a "Pyramid" and an "Inca City" as well. All, of course, photographed by Viking but "covered up" by NASA officials. Note that all of the publications help to put bread on the table and pay the rent for the creative folks churning out such books, articles, and tabloid stories about "the face." Now, imagine being a science teacher with a classroom full of 15-year old students who believe the television accounts of the face on Mars, cities on the Moon, alien autopsies, etc., and you are teaching your unit on space and astronomy. A careful excursion through the characteristics of the planets and their moons interests your students; the red spot on Jupiter would hold at least 3 Earths, a cool factoid, but it doesn't grab them. The face on Mars does. And this was what I discussed with the science teacher at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) meeting in San Diego, California.
Just as improved observational methods eventually discredited the astronomer Percival Lowell's claims of Martian canals, maybe now a new high-resolution photograph will end talk of a human face sculptured into the planet. The so-called Face on Mars showed up in 1976 in a photograph by the Viking 1 orbiter. The low-resolution image, taken when the sun was relatively low on the Mars horizon and the features cast big shadows, showed what some people claimed was the image of a face carved into a hill.
Twenty-five years ago something funny happened around Mars. NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft was circling the planet, snapping photos of possible landing sites for its sister ship Viking 2, when it spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face. An enormous head nearly 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from end to end seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia.
For those who still think it's a face, built by an ancient race of Martians, the American space agency Nasa just wants to say: Look at this picture. The latest images sent back from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), show, once again, that what is claimed by some to be a giant face is nothing more than a ruined mountain.
A key aspect of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Extended Mission is the opportunity to turn the spacecraft and point the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) at specific features of interest. A chance to point the spacecraft comes about ten times a week. Throughout the Primary Mission (March 1999 - January 2001), nearly all MGS operations were conducted with the spacecraft pointing "nadir" -- that is, straight down. In this orientation, opportunities to hit a specific small feature of interest were in some cases rare, and in other cases non-existant.
The legendary face of Mars has graced tabloid newspaper covers, inspired theories of alien civilizations and starred in a Hollywood film. But new high-resolution satellite images unmask the truth underneath the peculiar rock formation.
Stunning new images of the controversial "Face on Mars" have been released today by NASA and their contractor for the Mars Global Surveyor. The images were taken in April 2001 using a technique designed to capture the maximum resolution possible, during optimal lighting conditions. The contractor for the MSG camera is Malin Space Science Systems. You can see their complete release, including a 3-D analglyph and very large versions of the image.
Twenty five years ago something funny happened around Mars. NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft was circling the planet, snapping photos of possible landing sites for its sister ship Viking 2, when it spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face. An enormous head nearly two miles from end to end seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia.
Nearly 25 years after an orbiting spacecraft caught the Red Planet “mugging” for the camera, NASA released the highest-resolution image yet of the so-called Face on Mars. The new picture, taken by the camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft on April 8 and released today, shows the area in far sharper detail, but reduces any resemblance to a humanlike extraterrestrial.
The interest in the face on Mars has generated more e-mail (300 pieces this week) than I have time to answer personally, so I'm going to try to tell you what I know here. I talked to NASA administrator Daniel Goldin last Thursday and he tells me the Mars Global Surveyor will continue to take pictures of the Cydonia region, where the face is located, until everyone is satisfied.