Here’s something fascinating and puzzling, maybe WUWT readers can help figure this one out. There’s also a neat flipbook animation below the read more line.
Wayne Jaeschke writes:
Here’s a stumper for any Mars experts. While processing my Mars images from last night, I found a strange feature over Acidalia (top right of the animation below). I made this 5-frame animation of the green-light images. The feature appears in all the channels, but is most visible in blue and green and least visible in IR. Also, it moves with the planet (ruling out dust motes on the sensor) and seems to rise over the limb. Fog rolled in after this, so there is no additional data later than this. If anyone caught Mars after 2:15UT last night, please check your images… particularly after 2:51UT.
Update Note: for those of you Mars geographers, the most appropriate geographic location to cite for where the feature resides is Terra Cimmerium. Acidalia was where I thought it was at first glance, but the measured location is 190 degrees by 43 degrees (South) placing over Terra Cimmerium.
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My thought is some sort of volcanic eruption, as that would be the only thing I could think of that would make an elongated plume that high…but this seems to be even too high for that, but then again Mars has the tallest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, at 22 km (14 mi) high. If it were volcanic, it would be a first. According to Wikipedia: [Astronomers] have never recorded an active volcano eruption on the surface of Mars; however, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter photographed lava flows that must have occurred within the past two million years, suggesting a relatively recent geologic activity.
Barring that, maybe some sort of gravity induced comet disintegration?
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asteroid impact debris?
Its not a jet of green gas coming from the surface of Mars is it? If so, watch out for giant cylinders landing in a few months.
Space.com is on the case!
http://www.space.com/15065-mystery-cloud-mars-amateur-photos.html
Terra Cimmeria, to be exact!
A tunguska-like meteor explosion?
Imperial Walkers on the move.
Obviously Mi-Go.
no asteroid – a small comet, the same source of the nacreous clouds on earth.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/
This is the most neglected astronomical discovery. Ever. Anthony had to shut the last thread down – it got metaphysical. All the planets are orbiting the sun in a flux of small comets. They constantly bombard the earth. Louis Frank’s work at the University of Iowa has never been refuted.
Is that too far in latitude to be the Tharsis region? There are a few enormous volcanoes there, and can an eruption reach that kind of height even with a thinner atmosphere and lower gravity?
@gbbaking
There is no room for any 3 legged creatures on the planet anymore because their places have been taken already by creatures with three rotating arms.
That will be a puff of imaginary “greenhouse gas” from the Sky Dragon.
They have global warming on Mars too, you know….
It seems to be in the part of the planet that is still into the night. So it could be a mountain that gets lighted before the rest of the land.
Is it an impact? It looks large.
The atmosphere on Mars is very thin, so an impact could push up a lot of dust.
Mars’ lower gravity would allow ejecta plumes to go much higher, be they of volcanic or impact in origin. It’s a shame that area wasn’t in view when this event occurred.
Planetary warming, climate change, universal disruption? Beats me but it certainly seems like it’s tailor made for the United Nebula’s Intergalactic Panel of Concerned Catastrophists.
Are any of the Mars orbiters still operational?
If so, how long would it take to arrange a new picture of that region?
Has to be carbon dioxide … 😉
Wikipedia mentions cirrus clouds made of ice (and in th Swedish version even carbon dioxide …)
@Barghumer
Those 3 armed things that catch fire – heat ray malfunction?
I think it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger turning on the Alien O2 generator on Mars..
Has anyone spotted Arnold lately? See what I mean?
Total Recall
Obviously this is a large cloud of Martian Locusts on their first foraging flight after a long Martian Winter. I am certain John Carter will take care of them as they are considered a delicacy at the Princesses table.
An impact plume maybe? The images are good enough give us a good idea where to look in Hi Res satellite image data for a new impact crater, or other accosiated planetary scarring.
I passed it on to NASA Mar’s Reconnaissance Oribiter folks. They have some hardware in orbit around Mars now that ought to be able to get a better view of this event.
The green looks Aurora-ish. Or is Mars too far from the sun to be affected by that?
A volcano eruption would most likely show a symmetrical umbrella, like on Titan (sort of) but this does not seem to be umbrella shaped. It looks more like meteor impact with ejecta. We know that some impacts have thrown in space Martian surface material before, maybe this is one of those cases. It would be interesting to have pictures of that area in the next few days.
temperature inversion in the atmosphere altering the refraction of the limb.