Mars Flower or bit of plastic?

[TarJak]

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/martian-flower-uncovered-by-mars-rover-20130108-2cdig.html

No doubt the conspiracy theorists will be having a field day with this little gem. It will be interesting to see what NASA ends up concluding what it is. I think the trick will be trying to get analysis other than just the photo.

[Platapus]

This is one of the problems with extraterrestrial photography. Pictures taken on Mars (with its sun angles and atmosphere) will often look different from pictures taken on Earth (with its sun exposure and atmosphere)

For stuff like this, you really need multiple photographs taken at different angles and different times in order to properly identify things.

In this image, I can easily see some exposed ore that halates (glares) in that combination of sun exposure and atmosphere. But with one image, and a reproduced one at that, it is impossible to determine what is or is not "there".

[Oberon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLhoXJWE4ps

:yep:

[AVGWarhawk]

I think it is a corn chip.

[danasan]

That's definitely a mars flower, no doubt about that...

[Takeda Shingen]

Did anyone check to see if it had Jesus' face on it?

[Cybermat47]

It's plastic, any fool can see that! I mean, it's not human plastic, but still...

[Skybird]

NASA seems to be really desperate these days, craving for attention (and funding), considering how many events there have been now when a lost fart was blown up to a sensational, at least a mysterious revelation of some assumes spectacular news.

I honestly think these days that the whole idea of sending robots to Mars, and Mars exploration and painting visions of futures on Mars in brightest colours, all is about getting money for just going on with business as usual in the present. Forming the future has little to do with it, getting along this very day and paying the cheques by the end of the month is what it is about. The future, any kind of realism - imo have less and lesser to do with it.

It's like with commercials for washing powder or tooth paste. Clean. Cleaner. Shiny white clean. Cleaner than ever before. Clinically purified. Health-improving purity. Whiter than white. Ultimate white. Perfectly ultimate super-white.

The days of the race to the moon and all that fascination are over. Get over it. If you want that back, read a good classical SF book from the 50s-80s range.

I admit I am very tired of hearing all this fantastic news from Mars. All I see on the pics is a desolate, boring, lonely place not comforting to the human soul. And when we cannot even tackle Smog in our cities, not to mention other environmental issues, we still dream of terraforming an alien world and atmosphere...?

We must have lost our marbles.

[Oberon]

Actually, Sky, it's not NASA creating this fuss, it's websites following NASA. NASA just released the image, and this item was spotted in it. It's probably already been graded and dismissed by those examining the image.
NASA itself certainly will try to drum up funding though, since they're sniffing around for scraps of what's left over from the budget. Can't say I blame them when Russia and China are sending rockets up on a regular basis and the pads at Cape Canaveral have weeds growing on them...

[Jimbuna]

I think it is a corn chip.

Damn!....a potato chip I may have had a use for.

[Madox58]

Back when we started launching stuff at Mars, the SPCA forced NASA to use fake monkeys.
Those were filled with styrofoam peanuts.
Most of those missions crashed and burned on entry.
This is just some fake monkey gut blown around from those failed missions.
:haha:

[Blacklight]

It's actually a crystal in the rock that is not uncommon for developing in an area with water. The picture was taken with the Mars Hand Lens Imager, so the crystal is VERY tiny. We're talking millimeters or even micromillimeters tiny.

[GT182]

Nope, some dam litterbug from Delaware did it. We can now be called the intergalactic garbage state. Sorry New Jersey, you lose.