I'd grok it.

Whoops, sorry to repeat yours, drgeoffrey. Must have missed it the first time through.

Sandworm?
Call Muad'Dib! It's airborne!

I have a feeling all the Mars photos from now on are pretty much going to look the same: dirt, rocks, barren. And we send some guys up there, they'll tell us the same. Except they'll probably absorb all sorts of mysterious rays and whatnot and die early, but not before they have horrible dreams.

Or it might turn out to be like "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury. I don't know. All my knowledge of Mars comes from Edgar Rice Burroughs (The John Carter of Mars series -- all 11 books, thank you very much).

Camera defect, lens issue or a data transmission problem. Dat's all... This link explains the "black boxes" we see in pictures from the rovers all the time. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/spirit/a13_20040128.html

Also, NASA hasn't 'blurred' the ground in any pictures. Those 'blurry' patches are dunes of tiny loose sandy material. Those blurry patches are consistent and can be seen in many pictures from many angles and when shown in more detail (with a closer shot from a camera) they are obviously visible as loose sand sorted by the wind.

/yawn... read a coupl web pages about wind/arid climates and the geologic features they produce before posting plz!

Wizardx I resemble that remark!

Looks like a hot air balloon to me.

It's Star Drek


...or Alf.

I don't see that on the picture, maybe you all need to clean your monitor.

Actually.. if you view the linearized view at:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/033/2N129300816EFF0327P1730L0M1 .JPG

The image changes?!?

nah! forget about it guys I just had a horrible slice on the golf course. I usually send em to Jupiter when im on the green but I was a little off today.

ccIces: Thanks for pointing that out. I downloaded the exact same images and will use them in future discussions with the Art Bell-listening believers. In looking over the two images, it's clear that it's a persistent flaw or speck of dust or something on the lens. However, I can't wait for the first person who notices that the dot is lower in one image and higher in the other and, my goodness, you can calculate its speed and plot its trajectory and no known physics and account for this and ... (fill in more useless evidence here.)

actually boys, that's a dead pixel on the camera, dust would have a gradation to black, not dead black

Man, now I'm seeing them on raw images from various cameras, on both rovers... Here's are two lines of dots on an Opportunity HazCam shot.

Folder

I FOR ONE WOULD LIKE TO WELCOME OUR ANT OVERLORDS...

KENT BROCKMAN

A negative reality inversion

apostrophe?