Another dose of Martian awesome

January 12, 2010 12:41 PM

The Forests of Mars featuring an avalanche on another planet. From the Bad Astronomy Blog.

* note: it's not really a forest. Or even anything like a forest. YMMV.

posted by blue_beetle (20 comments total)

Mars is a desert planet. The trees are on venus.
posted by Artw at 12:43 PM on January 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

Long tendrils of frozen carbon dioxide vs. trees. Which is superior? YOU BE THE JUDGE
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:55 PM on January 12, 2010

Fta; If we can see this kind of thing from space, with robotic probes, what will humans see have when they go there and can kick over some rocks?

-WAR! (that's a home being kicked over ;)
posted by infinite intimation at 12:57 PM on January 12, 2010

Mars, bringer of WAR!
posted by Artw at 12:59 PM on January 12, 2010

Mars needs women.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:16 PM on January 12, 2010

Mars is a desert planet. The trees are on venus.

Then how do you explain the canals, Artw? I suppose deserts have canals, where you come from?
posted by IAmBroom at 1:18 PM on January 12, 2010

I suppose deserts have canals, where you come from?
posted by Pollomacho at 1:21 PM on January 12, 2010

Mars is a desert planet. The trees are on venus.

I think you mean Treens.
posted by permafrost at 1:21 PM on January 12, 2010

Like a lot of remote imagery, it can very difficult to get your brain to correctly interpret the image. Even though I've looked and analyzed hundreds of satellite images, it took me a good 5 minutes looking at the source images to finally get my brain to see the tops of the dunes as the crests and not the troughs. Once you get this, what initially look like columns sticking up into the air (the trees) will now look like what they really are: streaks of dark material flowing down the sides of the dunes. (If you can flip the image upside down, that could help: the direction that shadows are cast makes a big difference to how you perceive the image).
posted by bumpkin at 1:31 PM on January 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

I suppose deserts have canals, where you come from?

Of course. Wetlands, forests, etc. don't need canals.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:02 PM on January 12, 2010

I can't wait for google-mars, street view. Is google putting money or people into research to shrink the setup they created to make google earth street view work?
Send some google-rovers up there, and bam, they become the go-to on mars imaging research.
posted by infinite intimation at 2:06 PM on January 12, 2010

I want to live on the planet that has a Forest of Marus.
posted by Juicy Avenger at 2:37 PM on January 12, 2010

Thank you, bumpkin. I still can't see it for most of them (though there's a place in the upper center where it's obvious one is a trail down the side of the dune) but I feel like I better understand what I'm looking at.
posted by not that girl at 3:03 PM on January 12, 2010

These sites really need more context... i.e. what elevation the camera is (between horizon and nadir), how far away the subject is, and so forth. I shouldn't be looking at an image of an important scientific find and walk away disoriented; after all, if the article isn't just trying to get diggs the whole point is to educate. At least it's Bad Astronomy, which I have a lot of respect for.
posted by crapmatic at 3:10 PM on January 12, 2010

I suppose deserts have canals, where you come from?

Missouri, Pollomacho; Missouri.

And it hurts me that you would stoop that low.

Fine, I'm from Missouri. I admit, OK? Now can we move on... TO WAR WITH MARS!!!

/ or Yemen. Don't really care which.
posted by IAmBroom at 5:15 PM on January 12, 2010

Top down imagery allways causes confusion, the mind sees what it wants to see.
Look at the new preponderance of sidescan side looking intel sats and planes
that are now the norm since say 1990.
posted by Joachim at 7:03 PM on January 12, 2010

I still can't get my head around seeing the tendrils as avalanches. Looks pretty, though.
posted by qwip at 6:00 AM on January 13, 2010

They have deserts in Missouri now? And here I thought they just had a mix of violent crime and aging country acts!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:06 AM on January 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Honestly I still have problems seeing this as described. Why is it that the dark "columns" e.g. "streaks of dark material flowing down the sides of dunes" seem to only be vertically oriented in this picture? If the dunes are roughly conical, shouldn't this material be running down all the sides -- shouldn't the dark lines be more radially oriented?

Not that I entirely mistrust the descriptions written by NASA scientists. But if Cathy Somebody had stumbled across an image of Martian forest, she wouldn't likely just post it with a caption "Hey people, check this out - Martian forest!!!" There would, presumably, be a stringent vetting of possible other interpretations, and if no other explanation were plausible, an academic paper with multiple authors, a big gathering of corroborating evidence etc.
posted by newdaddy at 7:48 PM on January 14, 2010

You can see the entire image, in several formats etc, here
posted by newdaddy at 7:58 PM on January 14, 2010