May 25 — NASA has released a new crop of pictures from the Red Planet, including the sharpest view yet of the “Face on Mars,” a feature that looked like a sculpted head in lower-resolution pictures taken 25 years ago. The latest image makes the face look more like the eroded mesa NASA says it is. Nevertheless, it has reignited the debate sparked by a similar picture three years ago.
THE SET of images released Thursday was taken in April by the high-resolution camera aboard NASA’s orbiting Mars Global Surveyor. Global Surveyor also took the 1998 images of the Cydonia region, home of the Face and other monumental-looking structures.
Pictures of the Face taken by the Viking 1 orbiter in 1976 fueled speculation that someone or something might have created the structure as a monument facing out into space. Cydonia’s other monuments, including a seeming arrangement known as the City, added to the region’s allure for alien-seekers and conspiracy theorists.
Popular pressure led NASA to target Cydonia a few months after Global Surveyor arrived at Mars in September 1997, but the resulting images disappointed the fans of the Face. The gestalt effect that made the Viking image so facelike appeared to dissolve in the higher-resolution image — to such an extent that the truest believers claimed NASA was intentionally distorting its data.
Since then, Face fans have been pressing for another batch of Cydonia images. A group called the Formal Action Committee for Extra-Terrestrial Studies, known by the acronym FACETS, sent a letter to NASA in March complaining that the space agency wasn’t following through on its promise to take further pictures of the Face — and NASA responded by taking special pains during last month’s flyover.
“We do want to be responsive to all taxpayers,” Jim Garvin, chief scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, told MSNBC.com Friday.
SURVEYOR’S SECOND LOOK
The orbiter’s operators turned the spacecraft 25 degrees to the side — the maximum allowable amount — to center the “facelike feature” in the camera’s field of view, Garvin said.
He said the Face was captured at the Global Surveyor’s maximum resolution of 5 feet per pixel, which is about three times better than the 1998 image and 30 times better than the 1976 image. It was taken on a cloudless summer day — in contrast to the hazy winter views available in 1998.
The latest image shows a channeling effect on the right side of the Face that was not so evident in earlier pictures.
Garvin said the result reinforces the mainstream view that the Face is a mesa or butte, about a mile wide and 800 feet high.
“I’ve wandered over a variety of buttes,” he said, “and there are strange features that might remind you of this facelike feature.” He said the Face reminded him most of East Butte and Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain near Pocatello, Idaho.
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/577946.asp
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"I can't believe this. I got a midterm tomorrow, and I'm being chased by Guido the killer pimp."
THE SET of images released Thursday was taken in April by the high-resolution camera aboard NASA’s orbiting Mars Global Surveyor. Global Surveyor also took the 1998 images of the Cydonia region, home of the Face and other monumental-looking structures.
Pictures of the Face taken by the Viking 1 orbiter in 1976 fueled speculation that someone or something might have created the structure as a monument facing out into space. Cydonia’s other monuments, including a seeming arrangement known as the City, added to the region’s allure for alien-seekers and conspiracy theorists.
Popular pressure led NASA to target Cydonia a few months after Global Surveyor arrived at Mars in September 1997, but the resulting images disappointed the fans of the Face. The gestalt effect that made the Viking image so facelike appeared to dissolve in the higher-resolution image — to such an extent that the truest believers claimed NASA was intentionally distorting its data.
Since then, Face fans have been pressing for another batch of Cydonia images. A group called the Formal Action Committee for Extra-Terrestrial Studies, known by the acronym FACETS, sent a letter to NASA in March complaining that the space agency wasn’t following through on its promise to take further pictures of the Face — and NASA responded by taking special pains during last month’s flyover.
“We do want to be responsive to all taxpayers,” Jim Garvin, chief scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, told MSNBC.com Friday.
SURVEYOR’S SECOND LOOK
The orbiter’s operators turned the spacecraft 25 degrees to the side — the maximum allowable amount — to center the “facelike feature” in the camera’s field of view, Garvin said.
He said the Face was captured at the Global Surveyor’s maximum resolution of 5 feet per pixel, which is about three times better than the 1998 image and 30 times better than the 1976 image. It was taken on a cloudless summer day — in contrast to the hazy winter views available in 1998.
The latest image shows a channeling effect on the right side of the Face that was not so evident in earlier pictures.
Garvin said the result reinforces the mainstream view that the Face is a mesa or butte, about a mile wide and 800 feet high.
“I’ve wandered over a variety of buttes,” he said, “and there are strange features that might remind you of this facelike feature.” He said the Face reminded him most of East Butte and Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain near Pocatello, Idaho.
Want to learn more?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/577946.asp
------------------
"I can't believe this. I got a midterm tomorrow, and I'm being chased by Guido the killer pimp."