This was the Picture of the Day on June sixth.

Click image for larger size.

An extremely dark feature on Mars is probably just a pit – not the entrance to a deep cavern that future astronauts could call home, a new image reveals.

The 150- by 157-metre feature was first noticed in an image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on 5 May 2007 using a camera called the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE).

Viewed from directly overhead, the dark spot showed no evidence of walls or a floor, leading some HiRISE scientists to suspect it was the opening to a cavern

The new image, however, suggests the feature is just a vertical shaft cutting into the surface. Taken on 8 August from a different angle, the image reveals a wall on the feature’s eastern side.

     From NewScientistSpace.



  1. ethanol says:

    Wow, seems to make it a more interesting site for scientific research. BubbaRay, am I incorrect in that thinking?

  2. Ben Waymark says:

    If you look very closely in the cave, you’ll see Jesus talking to the Virgin Mary on his new (cheaper-than-two-weeks-ago) iPhone…..

  3. Mike says:

    Still looks like a pit of some kind, to me.

  4. Jeff says:

    And if you look even further into the hole you can see the grilled cheese sandwich on which the Virgin Mary is using a pre-release iPod Touch to listen to Cranky Geeks. She knows that video podcasts are just a waste of time and nothing will happen here until we’re all immersed in IPTV. Maybe I’ll make this one of my writing assignments on my personal site.
    Keep up the good work…I do read it daily.
    Jeff
    jeffcutler.com

  5. M0les says:

    Two words: Sand worms!

    May the spice be with you!

  6. brucemlloyd says:

    Ancient remnant from a geyser?

  7. Buckaroo says:

    missile launcher, aimed at Earth!!!!

  8. Peter iNova says:

    When you crank the shadow detail to the max in Photoshop, you see evidence of numerous round features like small craters on the floor. The largest is approximately 15% of the diameter of the hole. The smallest seem to be about a quarter of the largest in diameter.

    Its hard to see them reliably in the pixel noise, Their circular shapes don’t seem to be “wishful viewing.”

    It would seem that an overexposed shot of these features would reveal much more detail.

  9. TIHZ_HO says:

    Have a look at this web site – all you ever wanted to know about Mars is right here. (Caution over use of the word ‘anomaly’)

    http://www.enterprisemission.com/

    Long ago Richard Hoagland tossed a coin in the air – on one side was Jesus and on the other side was Mars…it was Mars. Amen, say it.

    Oh yeah

    Be sure to shut down your brain’s higher functions first or you will laugh too much and hurt yourself.

    Cheers

  10. Angel H. Wong says:

    That’s a photo of Pam Anderson’s p***y after her honeymoon with Tommy Lee.

  11. Angel H. Wong says:

    No wait, that’s the anus of a well known former telecom CEO looks after several months in prison.

  12. Jägermeister says:

    Seriously… this looks like polystyrene

  13. Hugh G. Rection says:

    Goatse

  14. Timbo says:

    It could be a tar pit. Mars might have oil.

  15. Steve Savage says:

    It looks like a huge sinkhole, which could mean that Mars has some sort of tectonic activity after all. It doesn’t look anything like a comet impact.

  16. ECA says:

    FOUR!!!!
    I said FOURRRR!

  17. KVolk says:

    ECA that’s funny I don’ t care who you are……

  18. BubbaRay says:

    #1, ethanol, even after a day, I can’t find any more information than was supplied in the article. If there are lava tubes on Mars (and the probability is good that there are), they would be excellent sites for exploration and the search for extraterrastial life.


0

Bad Behavior has blocked 11062 access attempts in the last 7 days.