Comments and questions about the
APOD on the main view screen.
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APOD Robot
- Otto Posterman
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Contact:
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by APOD Robot » Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:10 am
Martian Chiaroscuro
Explanation: Deep shadows create dramatic contrasts between light and dark in
this high-resolution close-up of the martian surface. Recorded on January 24 by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scene spans about 1.5 kilometers across a sand dune field in a southern highlands crater. Captured when the Sun was just 5 degrees above the local horizon, only the dune crests are caught in full sunlight. With the long, cold winter approaching the red planet's southern hemisphere, bright ridges of
seasonal frost line the martian dunes.
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Nitpicker
- Inverse Square
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- Location: S27 E153
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by Nitpicker » Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:30 am
Just beautiful. There is a black dot in the top left corner, which would be about 6m in diameter if it were real and on the surface. But I assume it is some kind of alignment marker, or similar, applied by the camera or the post-processing. (The lighting is all wrong for it to be a party balloon:
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=33136.)
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Chris Peterson
- Abominable Snowman
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- Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
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by Chris Peterson » Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:24 am
Nitpicker wrote:Just beautiful. There is a black dot in the top left corner, which would be about 6m in diameter if it were real and on the surface. But I assume it is some kind of alignment marker, or similar, applied by the camera or the post-processing. (The lighting is all wrong for it to be a party balloon:
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=33136.)
It's a bit odd, since it's not present in any of the original images. The artifact seems to have been added in the process of moving the image over to the APOD filesystem.
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Boomer12k
- :---[===] *
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by Boomer12k » Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:46 am
Looks like a giant Fingerprinted painting or something....
Very surreal...
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Jandotto
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by Jandotto » Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:06 am
I presume the frost is carbon dioxide not water?
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neufer
- Vacationer at Tralfamadore
- Posts: 18805
- Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:57 pm
- Location: Alexandria, Virginia
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by neufer » Sat Mar 22, 2014 1:23 pm
Jandotto wrote:
I presume the frost is carbon dioxide not water?
You presume correctly. (NASA refers to it as dry ice "frost").
Art Neuendorffer
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Lordcat Darkstar
- Ensign
- Posts: 37
- Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2012 2:49 pm
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by Lordcat Darkstar » Sat Mar 22, 2014 1:34 pm
Clearly the dot is a hole caused by a camera shy sand wurm.
These Mars pictures are always my favorite APODs. Keep up the great work!
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hannahrjr
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by hannahrjr » Sat Mar 22, 2014 1:47 pm
Have you noticed how much the dunes look like giant fingerprints?
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henrystar
- Ensign
- Posts: 97
- Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2010 11:40 am
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by henrystar » Sat Mar 22, 2014 2:09 pm
Lordy me, I remember the first flyby of Mars - looked lunar, nothing but craters. Then our second mission flew by (we did two at a time in those days) and showed non-cratered terrain in the other hemisphere, and we cheered up. We've come a LONG way, baby!
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retrogalax
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by retrogalax » Sat Mar 22, 2014 2:43 pm
These dunes have rich colors making this extraterrestrial desert pretty cool and smooth !
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Psnarf
- Science Officer
- Posts: 325
- Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:19 pm
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by Psnarf » Sat Mar 22, 2014 3:12 pm
Have they tried a cortisone ointment on that?
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zbvhs
- Science Officer
- Posts: 161
- Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2004 11:57 am
- Location: Frederick, MD
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by zbvhs » Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:33 am
And people want to go live there?
Virgil H. Soule
