Video of a "structure" discovered on Mars. Not a joke..

[bif]

It's a news story on Yahoo. But the video was taken down and all the commenters on there are freaking out that it's a conspiracy and the government or NASA took it down. A simple search on youtube and voile! Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDwkpYHX-Wk

I seriously doubt it's real. I think the image is about 10 pixels.

[hifiguy]

1. Probably the great stone ass of Mars

And give yourself 25 points for getting that reference. :evilgrin:

[mikeytherat]

2. That's on the other side of Mars from the Great Stone Face.

Me know this, 'cuz me can fly buggalo.

mikey_the_rat

[RedCloud]

3. It's a giant dragon fly about to find a planet with tasty animals.

[Lucinda]

4. You can see it if you d/l Google Earth and select Mars

Coordinates are: 71° 49'18"N, 29°32'48.35"W

[freshwest]

5. Why not call it Google Mars, instead? We're paying too much if they got money to blow on Mars.

Thanks for the coordinates, by the way.

[Lucinda]

8. Because the ap is called Google Earth

with Mars and a few other options available to view. Confusing no? LOL and YVW!

[originalpckelly]

6. Um, no.

I see nothing of the sort, the imagery is not high enough resolution to actually pick anything like that up. It's probably just some bad pixels or something.

[MilesColtrane]

7. Product placement for the new Transformers movie

[Auggie]

9. Probably a Starbucks

[snooper2]

10. "I call it bio-station Alpha"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[cbdo2007]

11. Wow, this guy really needs a mate.

[Xithras]

12. Of course it's not real. Anyone with a moducum of knowledge about Mars knows what they are.

If you go to that location and scroll directly northeast, you'll come to a field hundreds of miles across that contains hundreds of thousands, and possibly MILLIONS of white spots. Heck, if you scroll directly east, you'll find them at the same latitude. The identity of these spots is NO mystery. Those coordinates are in the Martian polar region, and the "white spots" are frozen carbon dioxide that is part of the seasonal ice cap. The permanent cap is only about 500 miles north of this point. They appear as spots because the area was imaged in the polar spring/summer, when most of the ice had evaporated and it only remained in small and irregular patches. It's sort of like far northern Canada during the summer. The ice cap has retreated for the season, but it's still very cold, and it's dotted with small persistent snowfields.

It's also nearly the same latitude (and not that physically far from) the Phoenix lander site, where the presence of frozen water was confirmed.

The "structure" is simply a larger series of ice patches. In any random distribution, you are bound to have areas of higher and lower density. In this spot, the density is simply high enough that is appears as one "structure". If you look carefully, you CAN discern at least nine different spots. There's also a pretty good chance that this particular spot may be sloped or something, which is simply causing it to melt a little slower than the snow around it. Anyone who lives in a snowy area can tell you that the snow on the north side of a rock melts last.

The square appearance is caused by pixelation. If you look at the bare ground alongside the "structure", you'll see the same squared pattern. It's EVERYWHERE at that zoom level. On the ground, on the craters, on the mountains, and on the snowfields. It simply stands out at this location because of the contrast between the white snow and the brownish red dirt.

Occams razor, a little bit of education, and common sense FTW!

[kick-ass-bob]

13. I thought it was a cool dunebuggy.

Now I'm disappointed.

[trof]

14. I dunno, but it's got parking lots.

But no cars?
Hunh.