MORE CURIOUS IMAGES FROM NASA’S DAWN MISSION TO ASTEROID VESTA
As you know, I've been curiously fascinated by NASA's Dawn mission images of the asteroid Vesta, and NASA just a few days ago posted a really interesting image with, to my amateur's eye anyway, some very unusual features. Consider the following image found at NASA's Dawn website at
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/4f2_365906459_detail.jpg
Here's the image:
Image of Vesta surface from NASA's Dawn Mission
Now I have to admit when I saw this, I was stunned, and studied this picture for almost two hours, debating if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, and whether or not to post it.
Well, I decided to post it anyway. Now look at the following features highlighted by the arrows:
Curious Features on Vesta
Let's begin with the arrow in the upper left, pointing to a curious, almost conical looking feature that appears to have amazing regularity. Immediately below and to the left, there is another triangular feature that, on close examination, looks to have a kind of cross-checked pattern. To the right of each and toward the center, there is yet another sharply defined feature that appears to be made of two equilateral triangles, difficult to imagine emerging under a standard geological process, much less on a small world subject to constant bombardment.
Finally, in the upper right, there is a "crater" with, yet again, two oddly visible "Walls" that are at a little more than a right angle to each other, yet another unusual feature that it is difficult to imagine emerging from any natural process at work on the asteroid.
File this one under "more things that make you go 'hmmm...'"
12 Comments
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You know what I see? It resembles a cloud of soil being thrown up when a gun shell hits the ground. Aren´t they another small bodies impacting right in the moment of exposure? Due to the small gravity of Vesta, it takes longer for the cloud of debris to settle down. Those black features look like a shadow.
Also those could be very young craters that uncovered some ice underneath and “splashed” it all around.
I just saw the above photo with the arrows tonight, Wednesday, 9/14/2011. What I found interesting is yet again an eerily occurring humanoid looking face in a natural formation. Go about 34 to 40 KM north of arrow number one and thar she be. The only problem with this one is it has a double set of eyes and brow lines. Ignore the top two eyes and brows and you have a chin, a mouth to include teeth, a nose and two eyes and eyebrows. It shows up good on the larger picture that includes arrow number four.
More light and shadow?
I’ve got to say that face on Mars named Boy King With a Crown stuns me every time I see it. It is so photograph like. It appears to be overlain with a very thin gauze-like or smoky like “something.” But it’s a real duzzy
I find nothing wrong with speculation. Because you speculate does not mean you believe every possibility as fact. While I have no idea what it really is, I think the structure to the right of the center arrow looks like a 50’s era sci-fi movie rocketship that crashed. The bottom fins on the right and the broken off top to the left. The chances are beyond slim that it really is, but it does look amazingly like one. Curious universe out there. We should continue to explore, with a very open mind, who knows what’s really out there?
The splotches look suspiciously like those huge ones left behind by the sacred Hadeda Ibises that visit our garden daily. They prefer to stay close to the ground as they are terrified of heights, as can be deduced by their horrific screeching when they are flying overhead.
Of course, at times they panic and crash land to the ground leaving similar ‘crash’-landing markings. This irritates the hell out of Pedro and Gigi my two miniature Schnauzer.
Perhaps they cause similar havoc on Vesta – is my guess.
I am having difficulty posting. I often get a message that says I am making a duplicate post even though it is the first time I am posting. Then I am unable to post that comment for the rest of the day. Sometimes, I am even unable to post that same comment after several days. So I am re-writing the comment that I tried to post here yesterday and I am changing the words around in the hope that your text censor…uh…text editor won’t nix it.
ALWAYS post, Dr. Farrell. I value your opinions considerably. If something catches your attention it is good to discuss it with others and this blog is a very good place to do so. Also, one of the reasons that I come here is because of your out-of-the-box thinking as opposed to the seemingly mindless repetitive toe-the-line dribble that passes for news in most places.
This is one of my favorite topics.
The four conics appear to me to be some form of covering (roof?) for the darker areas underneath. If my observation is correct, I cannot tell if this is due to a geologic process or if these are manufactured structures. I suspect the latter if for no other reason than it add a little spice to my life to think so.
The “crater” to the right appears to me to be a pentagon. I know of no geologic process that can make pentagons.
Well that’s about it for my “Hoagland-trained eye.” Speaking of Hoagland, Richard C. Hoagland is somewhat of an expert in examining pictures of planetary surfaces. What does Hoagland have to say about this?
In the meantime, I have made this picture my desktop image and I am giving it a good look-see.
Dear CQ et al
I know of a geological process that can produce pentagons. Here is the Devil’s Causeway in Ireland. Pentagons aplenty here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Causeway-code_poet-4.jpg
So geological processes CAN produce geometric structures. I just don’t believe that any of these structures we are seeing in these (rather grainy pictures) are other than natural in origin. In fact, I have not seen anything in any of the photos that Richard Hoagland (and now, Dr Farrell) has picked apart that cannot be explained by some natural cause.
Mind you the photographs are too grainy and not high resolution enough to really make a proper decision. Though I believe a lot of the whatevers can be put down to pixelation and photographic artifacts rather than something “other”.
I also don’t believe that speculating about these things really gets us anywhere. If you look long enough at a rock, you can see almost anything. It doesn’t make it less natural though.
[Something that people outside the UK may not realise: in the 1970s and 80s in the UK, you could buy a brand of curry that came in a box. You just simply added water, et voila, a beef or chicken curry that tasted more of a cardboard box than an actual curry. Its name, dear listener, was VESTA!! I’m still having nightmares about it still … lol.]
Thank you, paraschtick.
When I said that I am unaware of geologic processes that make pentagons, I should have said “of such a large size.” The pentagons which you refer to are made a chemical process. Large pentagonal, or hexagonal, craters of the size in the photograph are NOT formed by chemical processes. They are formed by huge mechanical forces acting against rock. Such forces cause a more random pattern as in a chaotic coastline pattern or a more symetrical pattern as in a circle.
As far as I know, no geologic process can produce a large pentagonal crater. Also the sheer size of this pentagonal crater dwarfs the “graininess,” (low resolution) of the photograph into insignificance.
Sometimes I like to speculate. It is often where new and improved ideas come from. If you think this is pointless, or that Richard C. Hoagland is seeing hyperdimensional mirages then I say:
“To each one’s own. To thine own self be true.’
I am sorry to hear about your bad experience with the curry. It reminds me of the last installment of “THINGS I HATE ABOUT MY FLATMATE.
http://ihatemyflatmate.blogspot.com/
Cheers.
Test.
From an entirely different point of view, I am delighted to see this “different take” on Vesta. in my own natal astrology chart, I have Vesta at my midheaven and have been following her stories and transits for over 40 years now. even have a bust of Vesta at a high point in my apartment!
Vesta is the “Keeper of the Flame!” The Vestal Virgin. “In Roman mythology, Vesta was the virgin goddess of the hearth. Worshiped in every Roman household, Vesta served as a symbol of home and family as well as the guardian of the sacred fire in her temples. As keeper of this flame—A SOURCE OF LIFE AND IMMORTALITY — the goddess played a prominent role in Roman culture.” (wikipedia)
One ASPIRES to where Vesta is in their personal natal chart. In my case, it is in Taurus/midheaven, meaning that I ASPIRE to be “grounded,” “earthy,” and aligned with my highest inspiration.
This latest “look” at Vesta is fascinating, and only helps to fill in the blanks in my multidimensional memory…
S in SF ^i^
Nope not seeing anything again, and believe me I would like to (lol). The conical features remind me of the liquefaction we have experienced down here in Christchurch (New Zealand) after the major earthquakes we have had here recently. Maybe the features were created during the asteroids younger molten phase and lava rose through surrounding harder rock and created these cone shaped structures?? (a bit like how volcanoes are formed … same thing??) Maybe a geologist could give us more detail on that.
Otherwise the criss cross structures I believe are just down to pixelisation when zooming in on a particular object. Are there any higher resolution shots we may study (?), because at this level of detail, I don’t believe one can truly say that there is anything strange going on here.
Kind regards
Harvey Price, Christchurch (NZ)
Even on closer inspection there are more anomalies than what you have highlighted here.
Where did Vesta originate from? The asteroid belt? The exploded planet ?
No, I don’t think you’re just seeing things.
I myself wonder about all of those long parallel lines in the newly released overhead photos of the Apollo 14 landing site. The entire upper third of the picture. Easy to find on the NASA webpage.