Starship Asterisk*

I'd love to get the original, uncompressed data to work with myself. I doubt I'd find anything interesting, but it'd be fun to try.

JPEG encoding does tend to 'smear' colours over areas (albeit subtly), so I'm guessing the solid black hole area is inheriting artifact details from the surrounding edges of the hole. The edge of the hole towards the top tends to be brighter, as does the enhanced area inside the hole.

I'm just guessing, of course... I'm hardly an expert on the JPEG algorithm.

Qev wrote:Bear in mind that you're playing with JPEG images (unless you've found a source other than the one I did for these images), which means any region of 'solid' colour is going to be full of JPEG compression artifacts. So odds are, any detail you're going to bring up using brightness, contrast, or levels tools are going to be artifacts and not actual terrain features in this case.

Hi Qev,

I agree -- anything optimised for web is going to have all sorts of artifacts and even though the features uncovered 'appear' to be logical, they still have to be viewed with caution unless as you say, original images are used for the enhancement.

To that end I have downloaded the full JP2000 format file from the APOD server (all 450MB of it) and will see what the file image holds.

That is one massive image!

DerekSmith wrote:To that end I have downloaded the full JP2000 format file from the APOD server (all 450MB of it) and will see what the file image holds.

I downloaded the whole thing... only to discover that I couldn't find a working j2k plugin for my version of Photoshop. *sigh*

Bear in mind, j2k will still have compression artifacts, being a lossy format like the original JPEG (albeit less so at high quality settings). I'm curious to see what you find, though!

Try searching for the image in the planetary photo journal and getting the Dot TIF file.

But from a team that identifies with a "football" field size and gives a link to a freakin soccer field where the given dimensions are 90 - 120 meters sure don't give me much confidence in their competence.

For all that know or don't know, a FOOTBALL field is 100 YARDS ! ! !
That is 300 FEET ! ! ! , , , or for you metric folks, , , do the conversion math.

ROFLMFAO

craterchains wrote:Try searching for the image in the planetary photo journal and getting the Dot TIF file.

But from a team that identifies with a "football" field size and gives a link to a freakin soccer field where the given dimensions are 90 - 120 meters sure don't give me much confidence in their competence.

For all that know or don't know, a FOOTBALL field is 100 YARDS ! ! !
That is 300 FEET ! ! ! , , , or for you metric folks, , , do the conversion math.

ROFLMFAO

What? That is a football field (or pitch). You must be thinking of American football, which isn't really football, it's a weird twist on rugby.

Hey all, I just saw this featured on Slashdot.

One of the posters there linked to a PDF that discusses the original images from Mars Odyssey:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/1371.pdf

Among the details are the conclusion that they are indeed skylights, not deep craters and not surfaces covered with dark material. Thermal images confirm they have a roughly constant temperature night and day, consistent with caves, and they happen to have one image with a floor visible at about 130 meters depth.

Also, most of the holes are directly next to or in line with confirmed collapse pits which are presumably related.

iamlucky13 wrote:Hey all, I just saw this featured on Slashdot.

One of the posters there linked to a PDF that discusses the original images from Mars Odyssey:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/1371.pdf

Among the details are the conclusion that they are indeed skylights, not deep craters and not surfaces covered with dark material. Thermal images confirm they have a roughly constant temperature night and day, consistent with caves, and they happen to have one image with a floor visible at about 130 meters depth.

Also, most of the holes are directly next to or in line with confirmed collapse pits which are presumably related.

Holy Hole in Mars, Batman! At 130 meters in height/depth, these Martian lava tubes could indeed house an entire metropolis!

motteler wrote: Holy Hole in Mars, Batman! At 130 meters in height/depth, these Martian lava tubes could indeed house an entire metropolis!

Yes, they could.

Qev wrote:

DerekSmith wrote:To that end I have downloaded the full JP2000 format file from the APOD server (all 450MB of it) and will see what the file image holds.

I downloaded the whole thing... only to discover that I couldn't find a working j2k plugin for my version of Photoshop. *sigh*

Bear in mind, j2k will still have compression artifacts, being a lossy format like the original JPEG (albeit less so at high quality settings). I'm curious to see what you find, though!

Hi Qev,

Same here, now I have to beg time from a mate who is running CS3 to crop out the bit of interest and give it back to me as a psd.

The answer is so simple that you have all overlooked it.
That is the 9 hole as Martian golf goes.



I never met a weapon I didn't like ( Ronald Raygun 1989 )

My two cents about mars "holes":
http://lc84.altervista.org/marte/buchi%20marte.html

It's in Italian, but maybe online translators can help you.
In a few words: no holes, "just" lakes. WATER lakes (also water appears BLACK from space, being it reflecting SPACE rather than SKY).
meteor crater + ice + volcanic region = water lake

i.e., ice in a meteor crater was melt by underground lava thus creating the lake.
About low aire pressure and water vapour... don't know, maybe ther's actually a water spring in the crater? It would freeze under normal circumstances, but it wouldn't if warmed up by underground lava!


But I don't think ALL "seven sisters" are lakes: most of them are just deep craters; but I am not able to download high resolution images of them: can anybody help? Can anybody download hi-res images of 7-sisters and post crops of the interesing parts?
Thanks.

Links to images:

Craters?
Dena (-6.084 N, 239.061 E)
Chloe (-4.926 N, 239.193 E)
Wendy (-8.099 N, 240.242 E)
Annie (-6.267 N, 240.005 E)

Lakes?
Abbey (-8.498 N, 240.349 E)
Nikki (-8.498 N, 240.349 E) (as above)
Jeanne(-5.636 N, 241.259 E) (subject of this thread)

jumpjack wrote:Links to images:
...
Jeanne(-5.636 N, 241.259 E) (subject of this thread)

the TIFF version has this "lake" in about 10x10 pixels resolution.

makc wrote:

jumpjack wrote:Links to images:
...
Jeanne(-5.636 N, 241.259 E) (subject of this thread)

the TIFF version has this "lake" in about 10x10 pixels resolution.

what do you mean?

I need this kind of resolution:
http://lc84.altervista.org/marte/immagini/MarsCave1.png

so I was sayin what you linked to does not cut it.

iamlucky13 wrote:Hey all, I just saw this featured on Slashdot.

Interesting! I understand that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has ground penetrating RADAR (on board primarily to look for subsurface water ice deposits) with a resolution of about 30 ft. Seems to me that looking for subsurface voids (lava tubes?) would be duck soup. Made to order for locating underground, radiation proof habitats.

exactly, why don't they aim that dude right down the tube and give us some answers in short order?
In any event, now that NASA has finally decided to let the peoples of earth know; what has been evedent to half the world anyway for almost three years, that. Hey guess what, Mars had oceans guys, boy wasn't that a shock to us all!
The bigger question, to me, remains. HOW LONG did mars have these oceans.
And the reality of the matter, If indeed mars had oceans long enough for life to develop within them.
Does anyone at all have any doubt whatsoever that underground water, unfrozen is going to be teeming with life. I should hope not it will be a practical certainty.

BTW, which is the official NASA opinion about these holes/lakes?

[u]RJN[/u] wrote:Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist.

Do not know how "official" is that. I still waiting for someone to convert j2k image relevant portion into something editable.

THX1138 wrote:exactly, why don't they aim that dude right down the tube and give us some answers in short order?
In any event, now that NASA has finally decided to let the peoples of earth know; what has been evedent to half the world anyway for almost three years, that. Hey guess what, Mars had oceans guys, boy wasn't that a shock to us all!
The bigger question, to me, remains. HOW LONG did mars have these oceans.
And the reality of the matter, If indeed mars had oceans long enough for life to develop within them.
Does anyone at all have any doubt whatsoever that underground water, unfrozen is going to be teeming with life. I should hope not it will be a practical certainty.

No doubt it should have life if liquid water is present underground. At least microbial.

How long has the oceans of Mars been gone? When did they dissapear?

Look at all the old astronomers notes. The answers are there.

Norval

Thanks Chains, always the gentelman.
Q Where can I locate these old astronomers notes on line I dare ask?

Thank you for your consideration


I never met a weapon I didn't like ( Ronald Raygun 1989 )

THX1138 wrote:Q Where can I locate these old astronomers notes on line I dare ask?

hint! hint!

As makc gave a good link to start from we will start there. Some, or even many astronomers saw those lines on Mars. With the discovery of the "holes" on Mars being talked about here it gives rise as to why there are these holes. Possibly lava tubes, maybe even drained aquifers, and then there is the one you won't see on your 6 o'clock news, yet is a possibility of great import and that is underground installations. Apparently destroyed now.

The photos of Mars from around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries show quite clearly, as do their drawings, that Mars had some unique features that are no longer there. Of course the "why" they are no longer visible won't be on the 6 o'clock news either, at least not the truth.

craterchains wrote:The photos of Mars from around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries...

I think we all would love to see these.