Adding a screenshot from the color Gigapan image with added shadow line notations. I am not sure how this all lines up in this 2 dimensional image to the true three dimensional space. If the pill shaped rock is not casting the shadow, there most be another object BEHIND it casting that shadow. No?
Any analysis of a Mars image has to consider the scale of the object. Curiosity takes both micro close-ups and stitched-together massive panoramas, and without any recognizable object for scale, you really need to include that information on any NASA photo.
Those seem incorrect. The shadow is consistent with other elevated rocks, like the ones in the lower right here.
Not behind it, but in front of it, the cigar-shaped rock immediately below it. Zoom in and you can see it.
I can't see it either. I've convinced myself that it's a bit of exposed vertical rock face, like a miniature retaining wall, with the top of the rock buried under the sand/dust slope.
I am not understanding which rock you are referring to as cigar-shaped rock. Using the other image Mick provided we cn still see the sun is casting vertical shadows. What object is in this same direction above the shadow circled in this image?
Yeah I think there's two different shadows there that just line up, giving an illusion.
look at this shadow from the post above yours, that rock must be hanging on by a thread!
They really look like they are floating! In the first one you circled (it looks like a piece of shrimp haha), is it connected on both sides at the base? My brain is struggling to make out what 3d shape on the ridge makes that shadow. My brain fails at 3d rendering.
Agreed. And the shadow below in the original picture is from the attached tictac outcropping. I can see it now that this image gives more information as to what the formations are in three dimensions.
having the rover in the shot also helps with scale.
Here's the panorama of that outcrop. You can see that it's a composite of a number of views. The bit we're looking at is at the center, bottom edge, where you can see those jagged fingers of rock.
I imagine the lower gravity helps, too. The thing a lot of people don't think about is that conditions are VERY different on Mars than on Earth; so you are going to see features that you'd not see on Earth. (Another thing most people miss is the scale of what these images are usually showing. This thread has some helpful images for explaining that.)
Note the similarity in shape of the "tictac" and the leftmost one of those jagged fingers in the front.
If the info I find is correct that should have been the photos from Sept 28, 2012, at about Sol 50 or Sol 51 (the Martian "day" is approximately 25 hours long, so they don't correspond with Earth days). But I lack the urge to pore over every one of the thousands of rocks that have been photographed to find an image that will get me internet clicks.
https://www.livescience.com/51996-mars-hoaxes-conspiracy-theories.htmlExternal Quote:
