Weird stuff on Mars !!!

"Ed" wrote in message
...

"Linda" wrote in message
news:GlAVb.10355$7Q1.5833@clgrps12...

Can one just use a magnifying glass on a flat screen to count pixels?

ROTFLMAO! Were you born yesterday??? Just load the image into
MS Paint and then select Zoom from the View menu. I know that might
be a challenge for you, but you might actually learn something new.
Perhaps tomorrow you will be learning how to walk. Wow!



Oh, wait, I see, just zoom up to 800% and count; gottcha big boy.

Yepper, Gomer!
jerry


Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 02:39:28 -0600, jerry warner wrote:

Oh for Christ's sake! Well whether they "feel like it" or not, they should!

Why? It isn't their business to provide public annotation for every image they
collect. This is a scientific expedition, with a fairly short window of data
collection. The investigators are under no obligation to provide any short-term
information at all. They've done a good job of providing press releases
highlighting key events and finds, and provided a great courtesy in releasing so
many raw images. By virtue of its public funding all of the raw data will be
available in short order, and the specifications of all the instruments are
already available. Lighten up.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Yepper, Gomer!
jerry


Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 02:39:28 -0600, jerry warner wrote:

Oh for Christ's sake! Well whether they "feel like it" or not, they should!

Why? It isn't their business to provide public annotation for every image they
collect. This is a scientific expedition, with a fairly short window of data
collection. The investigators are under no obligation to provide any short-term
information at all. They've done a good job of providing press releases
highlighting key events and finds, and provided a great courtesy in releasing so
many raw images. By virtue of its public funding all of the raw data will be
available in short order, and the specifications of all the instruments are
already available. Lighten up.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

yes Joe, they dont look exactly igneous, too soft or granular. Grainy?
The fracture points are softer than I thought at first glance. Still they take

a spherical shape which says something about their chemistry, or the
reduced gravity of Mars, or something -
jerry



Joe Knapp wrote:

"Ioannis" wrote
looks like micro volcanic or heat deposited glass beads of some kind.
note the sharp fracturing & pitting on several which is characteristic
of such materials found in nature, but Im liklely wrong.
jerry

That's what my guess would be, too. I've seen similar glass-bead
spherules,
having resulted from meteor impact heat on the moon in one of my astro
books.

But those moon beads are tiny ( 300 microns) and black. These are ~5000
microns and appear to have a matte surface?

Joe

yes Joe, they dont look exactly igneous, too soft or granular. Grainy?
The fracture points are softer than I thought at first glance. Still they take

a spherical shape which says something about their chemistry, or the
reduced gravity of Mars, or something -
jerry



Joe Knapp wrote:

"Ioannis" wrote
looks like micro volcanic or heat deposited glass beads of some kind.
note the sharp fracturing & pitting on several which is characteristic
of such materials found in nature, but Im liklely wrong.
jerry

That's what my guess would be, too. I've seen similar glass-bead
spherules,
having resulted from meteor impact heat on the moon in one of my astro
books.

But those moon beads are tiny ( 300 microns) and black. These are ~5000
microns and appear to have a matte surface?

Joe

Linda posted:

As usual JPL doesn't give any indication of scale or size of those objects
in the caption.

The pictures from the Microscopic Imager are 1024 x 1024 pixels, and cover an
area on the surface of Mars of 31mm x 31mm. Thus, adjacent pixels are about
30 microns apart. To see adjacent pixels will require something of a
magnification or 'zoom' of the original image, but any halfway decent paint
program or image processing program should do the job nicely. Some programs
will even enable the user to determine the size of objects (in pixels)
on-screen. JPL did state the size of the area on the surface and the
resolution when the first MI image was released, and has stated the figures on
the images a few times since then. I fired up Ulead's PhotoImpact and did
some quick measurements. In one of the images, the largest of the spheres
looks to be about 2.6 millimeters in diameter, with many of the rest of the
spheres in the 1 to 2 millimeter size range (similar in size to terrestrial
sand grains). The finer granular material around the spheres appears to be
made up of grains only a few pixels in width, so its probably more approaching
dust size than sand (60 to 120 microns in grain size and smaller). For more
information about the instrument, you can check out the following URL:
http://athena.cornell.edu/the_mission/ins_micro.html The full technical
briefing on the MI is also available at that URL as a downloadable .pdf file.
Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

**********************************************
* Attend the 11th Annual NEBRASKA STAR PARTY *
* July 18-23, 2004, Merritt Reservoir *
* http://www.NebraskaStarParty.org *
**********************************************

Linda posted:

As usual JPL doesn't give any indication of scale or size of those objects
in the caption.

The pictures from the Microscopic Imager are 1024 x 1024 pixels, and cover an
area on the surface of Mars of 31mm x 31mm. Thus, adjacent pixels are about
30 microns apart. To see adjacent pixels will require something of a
magnification or 'zoom' of the original image, but any halfway decent paint
program or image processing program should do the job nicely. Some programs
will even enable the user to determine the size of objects (in pixels)
on-screen. JPL did state the size of the area on the surface and the
resolution when the first MI image was released, and has stated the figures on
the images a few times since then. I fired up Ulead's PhotoImpact and did
some quick measurements. In one of the images, the largest of the spheres
looks to be about 2.6 millimeters in diameter, with many of the rest of the
spheres in the 1 to 2 millimeter size range (similar in size to terrestrial
sand grains). The finer granular material around the spheres appears to be
made up of grains only a few pixels in width, so its probably more approaching
dust size than sand (60 to 120 microns in grain size and smaller). For more
information about the instrument, you can check out the following URL:
http://athena.cornell.edu/the_mission/ins_micro.html The full technical
briefing on the MI is also available at that URL as a downloadable .pdf file.
Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

**********************************************
* Attend the 11th Annual NEBRASKA STAR PARTY *
* July 18-23, 2004, Merritt Reservoir *
* http://www.NebraskaStarParty.org *
**********************************************

"David Knisely" wrote in message
...
Linda posted:

As usual JPL doesn't give any indication of scale or size of those
objects
in the caption.

The pictures from the Microscopic Imager are 1024 x 1024 pixels, and cover
an
area on the surface of Mars of 31mm x 31mm. Thus, adjacent pixels are
about
30 microns apart. To see adjacent pixels will require something of a
magnification or 'zoom' of the original image, but any halfway decent
paint
program or image processing program should do the job nicely. Some
programs
will even enable the user to determine the size of objects (in pixels)
on-screen. JPL did state the size of the area on the surface and the
resolution when the first MI image was released, and has stated the
figures on
the images a few times since then. I fired up Ulead's PhotoImpact and did
some quick measurements. In one of the images, the largest of the spheres
looks to be about 2.6 millimeters in diameter, with many of the rest of
the
spheres in the 1 to 2 millimeter size range (similar in size to
terrestrial
sand grains). The finer granular material around the spheres appears to
be
made up of grains only a few pixels in width, so its probably more
approaching
dust size than sand (60 to 120 microns in grain size and smaller). For
more
information about the instrument, you can check out the following URL:
http://athena.cornell.edu/the_mission/ins_micro.html The full technical
briefing on the MI is also available at that URL as a downloadable .pdf
file.
Clear skies to you.


This has all been explained by Chris Peterson already.

"David Knisely" wrote in message
...
Linda posted:

As usual JPL doesn't give any indication of scale or size of those
objects
in the caption.

The pictures from the Microscopic Imager are 1024 x 1024 pixels, and cover
an
area on the surface of Mars of 31mm x 31mm. Thus, adjacent pixels are
about
30 microns apart. To see adjacent pixels will require something of a
magnification or 'zoom' of the original image, but any halfway decent
paint
program or image processing program should do the job nicely. Some
programs
will even enable the user to determine the size of objects (in pixels)
on-screen. JPL did state the size of the area on the surface and the
resolution when the first MI image was released, and has stated the
figures on
the images a few times since then. I fired up Ulead's PhotoImpact and did
some quick measurements. In one of the images, the largest of the spheres
looks to be about 2.6 millimeters in diameter, with many of the rest of
the
spheres in the 1 to 2 millimeter size range (similar in size to
terrestrial
sand grains). The finer granular material around the spheres appears to
be
made up of grains only a few pixels in width, so its probably more
approaching
dust size than sand (60 to 120 microns in grain size and smaller). For
more
information about the instrument, you can check out the following URL:
http://athena.cornell.edu/the_mission/ins_micro.html The full technical
briefing on the MI is also available at that URL as a downloadable .pdf
file.
Clear skies to you.


This has all been explained by Chris Peterson already.

Linda posted:

This has all been explained by Chris Peterson already.

Perhaps, but you seem to be unaware of the nature of USENET. Not all postings
appear on everyone's server, and not all appear at the same time. Thus, you
will often get more than one response to your posting. Besides, you "seemed"
to want to know how big the spheres are.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

**********************************************
* Attend the 11th Annual NEBRASKA STAR PARTY *
* July 18-23, 2004, Merritt Reservoir *
* http://www.NebraskaStarParty.org *
**********************************************