[meteorite-list] Martian Cave Entrance Detail

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 23:02:03 -0500
Message-ID: <009c01c7ae38$c5680a40$c3e08c46_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Kevin, List

    When I looked at your processed image and mentally
subtracted the stitchlines and the periodic noise, what I
saw was vague dark arcs nested inside each other toward
a darker center. So I took your image and fiddled with it
in the manner you described (luminance, contrast). Your
processed image definely has a darker center. As you stretch
the contrast, the center darkens more than the rest and so
on, for a bigger and bigger dark center.

    Now, if this was a vast cavern under the surface and the
hole was a "skylight" break-through, even if the "floor" was
thousands of feet down, the center under the skylight would
be faintly brigher than the edges, brightest at the center,
the opposite of this.

    IF (that was a big "if") the center is darkest and the circle
near the center is next darkest and so on, it can only be
interpreted as our looking down a very deep, relatively
straight tunnel or pipe. Why would Mars have a vertical
tunnel miles deep?

    A.) This feature is located on the slopes of a big volcano.
Volcanoes frequently have side vents, vent pipes, lava
tubes, a variety of geological "plumbing" extending from
them that release volcanic gasses.

    B.) Please note that in the unprocessed photo of the
"hole," there is clearly a whitish "stain" or discoloration
of the terrain that is plume-shaped and that extends
away from the "hole." Hot CO2 or H2O vapors might
have produced the plume, but I think a sulfurous gas
more likely (as frequently seen in Earthly volcanoes).

    Is there infrared spectroscopy available on this small
scale? It would be worthwhile to identify the substance because
we could then estimate long it would persist on the surface
and correspondingly get an idea how recent the activity that
deposited it was.


Sterling K. Webb
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Forbes" <vk3ukf at hotmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 9:39 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Martian Cave Entrance Detail



Hello all,

Regards the images and test on this page relating to new HiRise image from
Mars.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000984/

I reckon it's strange so many took someones word that there is NO detail in
the BLACK part of the image without attempting to process the image
themselves. Why there is a NASA statement that says NO detail visible in the
black, when there clearly IS detail after processing is beyond me.
This was done in a 2 step forward 1 step back process.
All I manipulated were brightness, contrast, density.

Here are the final two processed images. This data is from the full
resolution 440 mb JP2 download.

It appears that the camera scan lines are now visible as dark diagonal
lines, there is a little more there as well, noise, dark image, ????

Something anyway, not nothing.

http://www.mediamax.com/vk3ukf/Hosted/KsBlackHole001.JPG

and,

http://www.mediamax.com/vk3ukf/Hosted/KsBlackHole002.JPG

Regards Kevin.
Received on Thu 14 Jun 2007 12:02:03 AM PDT