What is the origin of these features in the attached image from the Opportunity microimager:

Opportunity :: Microscopic Imager :: Sol 034
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/034/1M131201538EFF0500P2933M2M1.JPG


Bob Clark

Now THAT is interesting. I have to say that this is the first post of a picture from mars that doesn't seem have an obvious cause.

Does anybody know of formations on earth like this that aren't organic?

Does anybody know of formations on earth like this that aren't organic?

hum,
very unusual, almost like a chemical growth?

I don`t know if this picture has been publicised here yet ,
but i noticed a strange <b>filament structure</b> near the
top right spherule...
At first i thought it was a cat hair, (they get every where you know).
but, the spherule is about <b>3 mm</b> in diameter, so this filament is extremely thin...

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/019/1M129869847EFF0338P2953M2M1.JPG

(look very closely)

NASA doesn`t know what it might be either...
They have suggested that it may be from the lander air-bags (<i>as where-else would it come from..</i>)
although it may be a chemical/electrically charged natural formation...

But it`s got me baffled...

Wow, those are two very interesting pictures!

What the hell is that filament?!

you think thats a good pic,then you'll love these. It's a 1 page site,but,all the links to JPL are workingmars anomolies (http://www.kungo.com)

The mineral filaments like asbestos are straight and not curved like that.

Two comments on an anomalous picture of Mars:

• http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/029/2P128948498EFF0327P2380L4M1.JPG

(1) Anomaly - This picture looks like an ancient battlefield. I see many hominid-like skulls and other bones lying around the frame.
(2) Proposition - As a kid, in my basement, I used to marvel over the texture on the walls. Sprayed reasonably by an amateur hand, the results were less-refined than a professional job. I remember spending time examining both Olympus Mons and Albert Einstein on my wall. In my early working-world days, I did coffee at a restaurant in Salem, Oregon. There was a hole in the wall of the men's room that had been patched; it looked like a scar from an earlier plumbing arrangement (perfectly aligned to be so) but could easily have been from a fight. In a sugar-and-caffeine daze at three in the morning, I had the profound realization that I was looking at the face of God on the bathroom wall. Wait, on second thought, it wasn't God, but Mark Twain. The only ceramic work I ever did in high school that my teacher considered artistic--he actually loved it--was a series of ill-defined statuettes fashioned with very restricted technique that sought to mark facial and bodily features about as vaguely as the texture on my wall, or the plastered hole in the men's room at Vista House.

That second is a point I've always borne in mind when dealing with Mars. Obviously, the Face at Cydonia, and also the lesser-known but supremely (potentially-) spectacular features at Utopia Planitia (http://www.mufor.org/utopia/index.html) are not what the EBE enthusiasts might have wished. I'm actually curious about Utopia Planitia; inasmuch as I accept the debunking images from Cydonia, I would love to see what's actually there at U.P.

However, of more current issues ... I'm struck by the topic image, which is, technically, expected. I'm one of those who considers liquid water on Mars nearly a given, and am convinced that not only is the Earth not the only lifegiving body in the Universe, it is also not the only lifegiving body in the Solar System. (e.g. Callistan moons) So the first question comes from my woeful lack of knowledge in the field of chemistry:

• When I look at the image, I see the possibility of bubbling in the form of some sort of chemical reaction; what is the possibility of the bubble-like formations arising from some chemical reaction early in the rock formation?

I think of ninth grade, when we grew large crystals from blue vitriol (http://dict.die.net/blue%20vitriol/), which is commonly used as sheep dip. The stuff makes water boil instantly, and as I look it up on the web, well, I find that my limited knowledge of chemistry may be (not is) closer to what I need to look at, anyway, than I had thought. blue vitriol: n hydrated blue crystalline form of copper sulfate [syn: blue copperas, blue stone, chalcanthite] . . . .

. . . . Vitriol of Mars, ferric sulphate, a white crystalline substance which dissolves in water, forming a red solution . . . . (link (http://dict.die.net/blue%20vitriol/))Now, I'm pretty sure Vitriol of Mars is just a given name (after all, it's a 1913 dictionary entry), but I'm curious about the Martian environment insofar as I don't see why some sort of chemical reaction along these lines would be a stretch, aside from presupposing liquid water, perhaps.

Which begs another question: When we put the vitriol into plain water, the water boiled away. But we never put the stuff in a supercold environment and then hit it with ice crystals.

But since it's all related to sulphuric acid, I'm curious: Can such a chemical process take place at Martian temperatures with only ice crystals for water?

I could swear I've seen pillow basalts (http://www.kidscosmos.org/kid-stuff/kids-basalt-pillow.html) that look kind of like this, but I could be guessing the scale wrong.

Well whatever the filament is that's seen in the micro-photos that the rover sent back is something that will have to be finally detemined when we send it back to Earth, if ever....You can guess and hypothosize all day, but it won't answer the question will it??? It's doubtful the filament is from the airbag....It's doubtful the filament is a blade of martian grass and/or etc...It's doubtful we'll ever figure out what it really is....

Atta Boy