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NASA / JPL / Univ. of Arizona
A lava flow in Mars' Elysium Planitia region takes on the appearance of an elephant in this picture from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, captured on March 19 and released April 4.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an elephant on Mars — well, actually, it's an elephant-shaped lava flow in Elysium Planitia on Mars.
The picture provides one more Martian example of the phenomenon known as "pareidolia," in which our eyes and brain can be coaxed to see familiar patterns in unfamiliar settings. Pareidolia is the best explanation for the Face on Mars, the Mermaid on Mars ... and even the Happy Face on Mars.
The Elephant Face on Mars also provides a glimpse of the geological changes that shaped the Red Planet over the course of billions of years.
"Flood lavas cover extensive areas, and were once thought to be emplaced extremely rapidly, like a flood of water," University of Arizona planetary geologist Alfred McEwen, the principal investigator for the orbiter's HiRISE camera, wrote in an image advisory issued on Wednesday.
"Most lava floods on Earth are emplaced over years to decades, and this is probably true for much of the lava on Mars as well," McEwen said. "An elephant can walk away from the slowly advancing flow front. However, there is also evidence for much more rapidly flowing lava on Mars, a true flood of lava. In this instance, maybe this elephant couldn't run away fast enough."
This picture served as today's "Where in the Cosmos" puzzle on the Cosmic Log Facebook page, and it took about an hour for Odies Neel to come up with the full story behind the image. Odies will be getting a pair of 3-D glasses in the mail as a reward — as will Seth Deitch and Jonce Matilovski, who came close to the mark.
Over the past six years, HiRISE (which stands for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) has sent back more than 22,000 images of the Martian surface, including 2,444 3-D anaglyph images that should give those red-blue glasses a good workout. Check out the HiRISE website and NASA's Mars exploration portal page for all the pictures.
There's still more to look forward to on the final frontier: Next Thursday, the big event will be Yuri's Night, a space celebration that commemorates the 51st anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's history-making orbital flight as well as the 31st anniversary of the first space shuttle flight.
The marketing director for Yuri's Night, Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto, discussed the past, present and future of spaceflight with me on the "Virtually Speaking Science" talk show, which airs on BlogTalkRadio and in the Second Life virtual world. Give a listen to the hourlong podcast, which you can get via BlogTalkRadio or iTunes — and check out Veronica's screengrab of our avatars sitting together in the Second Life auditorium:
Courtesy of Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto
AlanJBoyle Resident and Lunnna Capalini (Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto's avatar) sit together in the Second Life virtual world during the "Virtually Speaking Science" talk show.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Does this mean the Martians are Republicans?
Don't even joke about that!
Yeah, and look at what happened to that planet...
Back away from the drugs.
It's not an elephant -- it's Snuffleupagus!
GOD is trying to tell us something..
This what will happen to your planet if you continue to follow this symbol.
It mean that all GOP Tea-Party belongs there ,Its appropriate their First President will be Newt Gingrich.
If that is the case then the book "War of the Worlds" could become prophecy if Gingrich get lost on the way to the moon!
Haha! The Republicans use an image animal that of which is a symbol of Africa and Southeast Asia to be used as a symbol to describe a political party that is (now) predominately white and has always problems with minorities and women's health care rights since the post Civil Rights movement; those southern democrats jumped to the other side in a hurry back then.
Corrections: The Republicans use an image of an animal that of which is a symbol of Africa and Southeast Asia to be used as a symbol to describe a political party that is (now) predominately white and has always had problems with minorities (and now with women's health care rights) since the post Civil Rights movement; those southern democrats jumped to the other side in a hurry back then.
No, it means a huge waste of money. The Users of planet earth are looking to destroy another planet if possible.
Read: Conversation with gods: Book One.
How can you people turn this into a political issue .... ??
That elephant image looks happy and pieceful ....
Maybe because it is about 46 million miles away from Obama's debt and deficit ....
I was wondering where Babar had gotten off to.
NOW We know why Newt was so anxious to start a Martian Colony. He thinks that even He could be elected in such a GOP favored place.
Wow, what a bunch of idiots. I know I shouldn't say that but sometimes there are no other words.
No. It means the ancient Martians represented by "the face on Mars" used elephant labor to build their now ruined civilization.
It's proof for the existence of aliens!
@ The Jackel: "Yeah, and look at what happened to that planet..."
I don't know, Venus is the planet with runaway global warming...
@ Lusitania: "GOD is trying to tell us something..This what will happen to your planet if you continue to follow this symbol."
What will happen? Are you saying we'll also get elephant-shaped features...?
@ Popeye_Kahn: Maybe it just means that Hannibal found a cave like John Carter's...
I guess that low Martian gravity allows them to grow a bit bigger there...
If it were in the shape of a Donkey, would that have made the Martians Jackasses..?
I think that's an image of Ganesh, a Hindu god. Probably trying to get all up in Jesus' sh!t.
I hate to break it to you guys, but you had better take another look. That is not an elephant. That's a snuffleupagus!
There ya go..... the Red Planet. Can all Republicans now transplant themselves there and leave the Blue Planet to the Democrats? hmmm. Just kidding.
That's no lava flow. If the fossilized skull of an ancient martian mastodon. And we think dinosaurs were big.
Instead of crop circles..........it's now animal dirt drawings. I want some of whatever they are smoking or dropping..............!
reminds me of the Nazca lines...
The Nazca lines are far more mysterious. How did they lay out perfectly straight lines for such great distances? Why? Why? Why were the "drawings" of animals so huge? What happened to the people who created these images? We're not even sure when these lines were laid down. Easter Island? Nazca lines? Our earth still holds mysteries for us to ponder.
Aliens told the Nazca about the Face on Mars, so the Nazca decided to one-up the Martians. It was an ancient graffiti battle.
Ah...I see...
I also thought of the Nazca lines and wonder what other animal sketches or drawings can be found on Mars as well as other planets.
Still waiting for the Jesus Face on Mars.
Hey, it's Easter, after all...
Please don't... Imagine the ammount of stupidity that would be spilled if somethinmg like that appeared!
Hey, He's been seen in everything else...
I would love it. Especially if we could get web folks with researchers, educators, curators all together to hash it out!
[ New Bajaj Pulsar]
It is not pareidolia: It is proof that Mars was once inhabited by giant elephants...clearly. :)
It looks like Newt.
Somebody getting bored looking through the telescope and are drawing pictures on the lenses.
Proof that elephants invented time travel long before humans will ever succeed.
I saw Bigfoot in the clouds. He was hanging out with the stay puff marshmallow man and a geraffe.
Now I know where Snuffy from Sesame Street comes from.
With all this corrupt corporate political BULLCRAP going on why in the HELL are you wasting our time with this JUNK! Stick to the facts, it's time for the 99% American People to get their country back! We've had ENOUGH of corrupt corporate GREED!
It's time for corporates to give back to the 99% American People; the SAME people that made them successful! It's time for change, and that time is NOW!! Not later, but RIGHT NOW!! This comment is from a DEVOUT REPUBLICAN, but after 8 yrs. of corrupt political rule, I changed and am now with the 99% American People!!
Vote STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC! The life you save may be your own!!!
TR, just what has that topic have to do with lava flows on mars?? However I feel about our current economic/political structure, It does NOT belong on a science blog. Go away troll.
TR is so hot under the collar he is causing lava flows on mars in the shape of his true political beliefs.
sorry TR, but your rant is both off-topic and utterly useless.
just WTF does scientific exploration have to do with "corporate greed"?
of course I shouldn't even ask the question because you would probably go off on another completely off-topic rant that has nothing to do with anything
TR,
Get off the crack.
On topic, I really appreciate the latest satellite imagery. I hope it helps us to pick a usefull landing site for manned exploration in the future. Personally, I feel that it would be good to find/use a "lava tube" for protection from the sun's radiation and temperature variations of the day/night cycle. :) --S--
Yeah, lets land on another planet so we can screw it up royally too!
The majority of the human race has become a user infection and should be quarantined on earth until it implodes.
Read: Conversation with gods; Book One.
Nah, Mars it pretty screwed already. I don't think even we could turn Earth into the skeleton of a planet that is Mars.
The Republicans accept your challenge.
My only concern about human behavior in this context, is how some people think that places that are already dead, dry, radiation blasted, vacuum soaked, extremely hot and/or cold rocks (not Mars perhaps, but certainly the Moon and asteroids), have some kind of right to be left utterly 'pristine' and untouched...
Where there's life, there must be protection and respect. The protocol for using the Genesis Device in Star Trek II was a sound one.
But if it's a dead world, I don't care if you turn it into another Disney World...
Sleezy, with a hatred for the human race such as yours, why do you continue to be OF IT? Die troll.
In conversations elsewhere, it is conjectured that this Earth has been ruined many times in past eons, even suffering nuclear anniliation. As far as complete obliteration, the only thing that can do that is a nova of our sun; or a nova within the vicinity of the Milky Way.
even suffering nuclear anniliation
? don't remember anything like that
asteroid impact annihilation, complete destruction of the atmosphere by overwhelming quantities of a toxic, corrosive gas (oxygen), deep freezes, etc. but no nuclear annihilation.
and yes, the oxygen changeover was a catastrophe for the organisms alive at the time.
second life? You just lost all your cred.
How much is all that cred worth in Linden dollars? ;-)
Good, I'm sure there is plenty of room for the whole republican party there, I,m for that. Far out, right?
Sorry Jack not far enough for my taste.
I hope they are better protected there than here.
We will find near the form a grafitty stating "Ganesh was here" which will piss off the fundamntalist monotheists
i don't quite understand what the hubbub is all about...
it is clearly a very old male elephant who's lost both his tusks and, no doubt, his harem in a long-lasting fight for supremacy with a younger stud...
which begs the question: just where in blazes is that winning studly mcmuffin, and what is he doing with all those females?
way to go 'TR'Rose II. I GOT YOUR BACK. wasting all this money to see what the hell is out there. who cares. they should be studying earth.and trying to figure out the global warming. they got there heads so far up there ass that they don't know or they think this is a story. waste or time.and i agree with u on the 99%. im part of that. thats what they should be talking about how the 1% wants us to give them tax brakes.what a bunch of clowns. its time to take them down. the time is now.look at how the Republicans are trying to f++k women without the pill. all bulls++t.well time to go this gets me so mad
.....................................................December 21,2012..............................................
................................................................MMF ...........................................................
too bad you don't have anything intelligent to say...
How did they ever launch an elephant to land on earth?
Finally proof of alien life on Mars.......
Did they charge extra to launch his trunk?
Proof that Dumbo can fly......
More Republican dirty tricks
Looks more like the spy that told the storm troopers where Han was while he and Chewy were in the process of getting Obi Wan and Luke off of the planet.
"Most lava floods on Earth are emplaced over years to decades, and this is probably true for much of the lava on Mars as well," McEwen said.
Sounds like another "expert" has never been to the lava flows on Hawai'i.
Which is why they said "Most" It looks like someone does not understand the reading. Pay attention in class the next time.