man made or martian made runway on Mars

[Hazzard]

What the hell are we talking about here,... those lines are obviously painted on to the photo and not on the actual surface??!!

[seeder]

I wonder if its near Lake tau

[nothinglizx2]

That supposedly straight line is going over some pretty uneven terrain, it seems a real bad way to make a runway. It really looks like someone has stitched a photo together, or made some sort of defining mark, it does not look like a runway.

look people, I just found it and posted it. You can say whatever you want to say about it and possibly look like just another naysayer on here that wants to cause problems to divert everybody's attention away from a possible find and or truth, or you all can go and do the research yourself instead of telling me what it looks like.

[JesseCuster]

The image is genuine in that it's not a fake. That's not a runway photoshopped into a NASA pic. It is however not a runway or any sort of artificial object on Mars.

The image is from the HiRISE camera. I've sourced the original image. It's available here - http://hirise.lpl.ar...PSP_009505_1755

Satellite pictures of Mars when they come directly from the camera aren't aligned on a north-south axis. The satellite's motion is a few degrees off a neat north-south path, so NASA "map projects" the images by rotating it so that north is up and south is down when you're viewing the image on your computer.

Here's the area taken straight from the non map projected HiRISE image.

Note that the "runway" is a pure black exact rectangle aligned 100% horizontally. Clearly the result of some sort of error. A glitch or blip that caused part of the camera to temporarily not work and it didn't collect any data. Something like that.

Here's the "runway" map projected as it appears in Google Mars when the Google Mars compass is aligned so that north is up.

The image has been rotated 180 degrees and then by a few more so that up is exactly north, left is exactly west, etc. Like I said, satellite images don't come off the camera that way, they need to be rotated (and sometimes flipped left to right) so that up is north.

Note that that is what's seen in Google Mars when the Mars Curiosity Rover layer is switched OFF. The image is taken in Gale Crater, where Curiosity is and it thus has been heavily imaged by the MRC orbiter. One of the cool toys in Google Mars is the ability to switch on various layers which show different features such as to do with the various landers and rovers.

When you switch ON the Curiosity layer on Google Mars, this is what you see.

Why?

Because when the Curiosity layer is switched ON, Google Mars shows detailed imagery of the entire area around Curiosity. By default, Google doesn't show the best quality images of any given area of Mars. It's a mishmash of different imagery from different orbiters sometimes interspliced with selected very high resolution images. But some layers turn on high resolution images for some areas such as the Curiosity layer.

But the image in that area is a composite image made from multiple orbiters pics which overlap each other and which were then blended together into the final image. So the "runway" is created from two separate overlapping orbiter pics. One of which showed the normal terrain in the area and one of which had some sort of data drop out. The result merge is what we see in the OP image.

For comparison, here's the same area taken from another HiRISE image which shows nothing but boring rocky terrain like the rest of the area.

Source: http://hirise.lpl.ar...PSP_009571_1755

And just to clarify the point, the whole area has several similar features where an image with some sort of blacked out block error was merged with another. Imaged created from merged overlapping images above, original image with data error below:

Sorry nothinglizx2. No Martian runways here.

Edited September 25, 2013 by JesseCuster

[DONTEATUS]

When are we going to See Google Mars ? The ones with all the Airports and Flying Disc,I know theres a Monkey and One Earth man on Mars,I seent it on a Documentary a zillion years ago ! They Had to live under ground. Because the Bad aliens would work there Slaves mineing !

[seeder]

The image is genuine in that it's not a fake. That's not a runway photoshopped into a NASA pic. It is however not a runway or any sort of artificial object on Mars.

The image is from the HiRISE camera. I've sourced the original image. It's available here - http://hirise.lpl.ar...PSP_009505_1755

Satellite pictures of Mars when they come directly from the camera aren't aligned on a north-south axis. The satellite's motion is a few degrees off a neat north-south path, so NASA "map projects" the images by rotating it so that north is up and south is down when you're viewing the image on your computer.

Here's the area taken straight from the non map projected HiRISE image.

Note that the "runway" is a pure black exact rectangle aligned 100% horizontally. Clearly the result of some sort of error. A glitch or blip that caused part of the camera to temporarily not work and it didn't collect any data. Something like that.

Here's the "runway" map projected as it appears in Google Mars when the Google Mars compass is aligned so that north is up.

The image has been rotated 180 degrees and then by a few more so that up is exactly north, left is exactly west, etc. Like I said, satellite images don't come off the camera that way, they need to be rotated (and sometimes flipped left to right) so that up is north.

Note that that is what's seen in Google Mars when the Mars Curiosity Rover layer is switched OFF. The image is taken in Gale Crater, where Curiosity is and it thus has been heavily imaged by the MRC orbiter. One of the cool toys in Google Mars is the ability to switch on various layers which show different features such as to do with the various landers and rovers.

When you switch ON the Curiosity layer on Google Mars, this is what you see.

Why?

Because when the Curiosity layer is switched ON, Google Mars shows detailed imagery of the entire area around Curiosity. By default, Google doesn't show the best quality images of any given area of Mars. It's a mishmash of different imagery from different orbiters sometimes interspliced with selected very high resolution images. But some layers turn on high resolution images for some areas such as the Curiosity layer.

But the image in that area is a composite image made from multiple orbiters pics which overlap each other and which were then blended together into the final image. So the "runway" is created from two separate overlapping orbiter pics. One of which showed the normal terrain in the area and one of which had some sort of data drop out. The result merge is what we see in the OP image.

For comparison, here's the same area taken from another HiRISE image which shows nothing but boring rocky terrain like the rest of the area.

Source: http://hirise.lpl.ar...PSP_009571_1755

And just to clarify the point, the whole area has several similar features where an image with some sort of blacked out block error was merged with another. Imaged created from merged overlapping images above, original image with data error below:

Sorry nothinglizx2. No Martian runways here.

Good Job

[nothinglizx2]

Thanks Jesse, that was very helpful.

[Sweetpumper]

Helpful for those who actually thought that was a runway.

[psyche101]

look people, I just found it and posted it. You can say whatever you want to say about it and possibly look like just another naysayer on here that wants to cause problems to divert everybody's attention away from a possible find and or truth, or you all can go and do the research yourself instead of telling me what it looks like.

How is that a diversion when I am asking you to look at it more closely?

I think your own words expose your agenda.

[psyche101]

Dude I'm struggling to see anything besides a stitched line across the picture. I need to get my eyes checked!

Indeed, but I was referring to the terrain, giving the OP the benefit of the doubt (Until Jesses Post of course) looking at the ground, the line goes straight over hills and rough terrain, yet to the left and up a little is another area of the same size in the same vicinity that is flat ground. I was trying to help the OP, but the OP took offence. You can lead a horse to water hey.

[qxcontinuum]

i have a better one fro Mars that i will be posting shortly .

Thant planet is full of surprises!

[JesseCuster]

Thanks Jesse, that was very helpful.

Glad to be of help.

A couple of words of advice:

• Don't trust what you see on Google Mars (or Earth for that matter) as being a reliable indicator of what's really there, especially when you find an "anomaly". The images you see on Google are several levels of digital processing (resizing, map projecting, lossy compression, stitching, etc.) beyond what came off the orbiter camera in the first place. Always go to the source when you can.
  
• In Google Mars, you can find image reference numbers and links to the sources for images from multiple orbiters (sometimes multiple images of the same area from a given orbiter, NASA likes to monitor changes from season to season and year to year for some areas). Check the layer options on the left panel.
  

Edited September 26, 2013 by JesseCuster

[AlienDan]

It's something ON the image, not IN the image.

[JesseCuster]

Clearly a fake.

What the hell are we talking about here,... those lines are obviously painted on to the photo and not on the actual surface??!!

It's not a fake or a Photoshop or any sort of hoax.

These kind of kneejerk reactions of "HOAX!" and "PHOTOSHOP!" and "FAKE!" don't do yourselves any favours. Don't call hoax or fake unless you have the facts to back it up. The OP in this thread is not a fake or hoax. It's just a misinterpretation of genuine NASA pics that were heavily subjected to heavy post-processing as I have explained in my previous post.

People, please get your facts together before blurting out this kind of crap. If you don't have the actual knowledge to identify an actual fake or Photoshop job or hoax, then don't try and pretend you do.

Edited September 26, 2013 by JesseCuster