What's that? New rock in Mars rover photos baffles scientists, fans

chron.com ^ | January 16, 2014 | Carol Christian |

[BenLurkin]

Practically overnight, an unexplained piece of rock has shown up on photos from NASA's Mars rover Opportunity, according to the digital Russian TV network RT (Russia Today).

The rover hasn't moved in over a month, as it waits for better weather, but a photo taken on Sol 3540 (Jan. 8, or the 3,540th Martian solar day since the Opportunity rover landed) shows a rock that wasn't visible in previous photos taken on Sol 3536.

...

Staffers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who maintain the rover camera (pancam) database for NASA have named the rock Pinnacle Island.

[mrsmith]

Not much like ‘The Scream’ just a little elongated, mouth’s shut.
Rock points right between the eyes at the nose.

[JRandomFreeper]

Mars. The ultimate Rorschach test.

I can't wait for the tourist brochures.

/johnny

[spokeshave]

...a baby Spice Worm

[smoothsailing]

it's an empty jiffy pop pan with the handle missing

[null and void]

*GROAN*

[null and void]

Fungus!

You shoulda pinged him...

[null and void]

Leading me to consider the kind of mind that spontaneously bursts out with “rock of phages” at the mere mention of bacteriological activity as an hypothesis for the rock that is not there then is.

mrsmith is Donovan's FR screen name.

[mrsmith]

NSA Interrogator: “Mrsmith, if that’ IS your real name, you claim you spent 300 million dollars, developed a new form of space propulsion and went to Mars and put that rock there just so you could make a pun?”

Mrsmith: “Yes, but not just ‘a” pun... a GREAT pun! HA, HA, HA HA!”

[null and void]

It is epic.

[null and void]

Go here

[AlmaKing]

Appian Way?

That’s the Bimini Road.

[Talisker]

It's an oyster mushroom.

[Louis Foxwell]

Celebrating 50 years of emerging truth, or something. "First there is a mountain...."

Thank you null and void. I am delighted by the patch of berries I have fallen into. There is, indeed, a force greater than we can know who ties the knots holding us together.

Thank you, mrsmith, your wit is magnified by half a century of accumulated wisdom.

Johnny, oh Johnny. Wherefore art thou my Johnny?
"I am here inn the berry patch," says Johnny. "They are sweet and tart and altogether delicious."

[JRandomFreeper]

Dammit.... The lawyer said that was privileged communications, and it would never hit a transcript.

Lawyers, you pay them thousands, they get $$s on the side, and briar patch conversations leak out anyway.

/johnny

[Swordmaker]

I think it was always there. Just different angle if light and shadow in the two photos. I can see details in the rock that are present in the first photo shadows as dim outlines. It’s there, just differently highlighted.

[dalereed]

Wetbacks throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents!!

[Iscool]

Looks like it’s in both photos to me.

It is...One picture is distorted compared to the other but it is definitely in both pictures...

[SERE_DOC]

"Wetbacks throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents!!"

Really, a bloody insensitive remark... this is 2014 for the love!

How about Hydrated Posteriors Carbon Units from a disinterested third party geophysical land mass launched geo-nonspecific artifacts of an igneous nature on a trajectory that intersected with Agents from the United States Immigration Services

[dalereed]

I'm an insensitive bastard and don't believe in political correct shit, EVER!!!

[a fool in paradise]