Tag: JPL

Huge cylindrical UFO captured by Mars Curiosity Rover

This image was taken by Navcam: Right B (NAV_RIGHT_B) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 613 (2014-04-28 04:48:22 UTC). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This image was taken by Navcam: Right B (NAV_RIGHT_B) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 613 (2014-04-28 04:48:22 UTC).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The latest images released by Mars Curiosity Rover show what appears to be a very large cylindrical shaped UFO traveling in the Martian night sky. The UFO appears in a sequence of five images over a ten minute period with the time stamp of April 28, 2014. The images ewere uploaded on April 30 by NASA, and immediately aroused the attention of UFO researchers monitoring the Curiosity Rover camera feeds which are regularly released on a website owned by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located at the California Institute of Technology.

Scott Waring from UFO Sightings Daily today wrote that the images are not a result of time lapse photography and appear to show a huge self-propelled craft traveling in a uniform direction. While he considers the possibility that the images are a result of a small moon or asteroid, the shape suggests otherwise. One cause for concern is that NASA only released thumbnail sized versions of the images rather than the full resolution versions which is customary. This may be because NASA is trying to minimize the significance of the UFO images which may be clear evidence of an intelligently controlled space craft flying over Mars.

The first researcher to identify the cylindrical UFO was Waring who in his May 1 blog post dismissed the idea that the object was due to time lapse:

The shape of the UFO is just as we see it, long cigar shaped. At first a person will assume the exposure (shutter) was open allowing the photo to record for a few seconds, but no. The shutter speed is normal. This object was moving slow, which is proven by the time stamps on the photos on the NASA site. That means since it was moving slowly, the shape we see before us is the correct shape of the object.

One possible explanation is that the object is of one of Mars’ two moons, Phobos or Deimos. They are respectively 22 and 13 kilometers in diameter, and have respective orbits of 9,400 and 23,460 kilometers above Mars. They are thought to be captured asteroids and are irregular in shape. This is significant since as Waring points out, the objects in the Curiosity Rover image is not irregular:

Then again, could this be a moon or micro moon orbiting Mars? Yes, it could be possible, however a moon of this shape would have a high probability of flipping end over end. This object has slow, balanced movement like a ship in water…having the appearance of an object that is self propelled.

The object could also be one of the known terrestrial spacecraft orbiting Mars. Currently both NASA and the European Space Agency have orbiters flying around Mars. The European Space Agency placed the Mars Express in orbit in early 2004, and NASA currently has two orbiters, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006) and the Mars Science Laboratory (2011). Yet none of the Mars orbiters are cylindrical in shape or very large. If time lapse photography was not used in generating the NASA JPL images showing cylindrical UFO, then that would rule out any of the Mars orbiters.

 

What is of great concern is that NASA’s JPL only released thumbnail sized versions of the UFO images. Normally, JPL provides full sized versions, along with thumbnail versions. In the case of the sequence of five images showing the cylindrical UFO, along with a companion image that shows the night sky just after the UFO disappears over the horizon, these are only 192×256 pixels in size. The first of this sequence of six images has the time stamp of 2014-04-28 04:48:22 UTC. The image appearing just before the sequence of six has a timestamp of 2014-04-28 04:47:55 UTC and was released in the full version of 1024×1024 pixels. That means that the Curiosity Rover image taken just 27 seconds before the sequence of UFO pictures, was released in full size, rather than thumbnail size. The full scale image versions have yet to be released and are being studied by NASA. Why? This only fuels speculation that the sequence of five Curiosity Rover images did capture an intelligently guided cylindrical shaped UFO of tremendous size flying over Mars.

© Copyright 2014. Michael E. Salla, Ph.D.

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Is NASA muzzling scientific results from Mars Curiosity Mission?

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity dug up five scoops of sand for analysis by its SAM instrument – results to be announced at next weeks America Geophysics Union Conference in San Francisco

Yesterday, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) took the extraordinary step of dampening speculation over comments made by one of the leaders of the Mars Curiosity Mission. Just before Thanksgiving, on November 20, John Grotzinger, principal investigator of the Surface At Mars instrument on the Curiosity Rover, was quoted on NPR radio that a discovery had been made that would be “one for the history books.”  Many scientific observers took that to mean that he was about to announce that Curiosity had discovered organic compounds on Mars – the building blocks of life. In an interview with US News, JPL spokesperson Veronica McGregor says that Grotinsky had been “misinterpreted”. She said that there were definitely nothing significant about organic compounds in the results to be announced at a scientific conference next weekbeing hosted by the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Rather than an earthshaking announcement, it appears that Grotzinger will be presenting much more mundane data and results about the Curiosity Mission – its working fine after a long flight from Earth! Did Grozinger simply overreach himself in commenting about the data and results from a soil analysis by the Curiosity Rover, or is he being muzzled by more senior NASA figures over what was exactly found on Mars?

Here is what McGregor said about Grotzinger interview on NPR radio that has created much media interest and internet speculation over the last week:

He was extremely excited and continues to be extremely excited that we had the first data coming back from our first sample and the machine is operating beautifully… This was the science team’s equivalent of the landing moment. It was a key moment after years of work.

McGregor is saying that Grotzinger was merely excited that the Mars SAM instrument was working fine after the long trip to Mars, and that it was sending back good data. That was the history making element that Grotzinger was referring to, according to McGregor:

I think there was a misinterpretation of what he said. This is a scientist who was so excited his instrument was sending back data … John was extremely excited about having the first data back from SAM…. It’s very interesting data and the scientists are chewing on this—he does believe this mission will be one for the history books. But knowing these rumors [of organic compounds on Mars] were floating out there and knowing we didn’t yet have the results, we wanted to let people know that they’re definitely not in these initial samples…

Yet in the NPR interview Grotzinger focused on the data itself as being history in the making, not the transmission of the data. This is what he actually said to the NPR interviewer:

We’re getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting. The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down…. This data is gonna be one for the history books. It’s looking really good.

What’s clear from Grotzinger’s own comments is that the data itself is “one for the history books,” not the Curiosity mission or the scientific process by which the data is being transmitted.

In claiming that Grotzinger’s comments were being misinterpreted and that he meant that it was the “mission”, not the “data” that was one for the history books, McGregor is being disingenuous. Did Grotzinger simply misspeak, setting off much speculation about the data results from one of the Mars Curiosity soil analysis experiments? Or is Grotzinger and his data being muzzled by NASA? One thing now appears certain. Nothing extraordinary will be announced at next week’s American Geophyiscal Union conference in San Francisco where Grotzinger will announce the results of a soil analysis by the SAM Rover instrument. Maybe there was nothing extraordinary to be announced all along; or, perhaps, NASA is muzzling something extraordinary that Curiosity has discovered on Mars.

© Copyright 2012. Michael E. Salla. Exopolitics.org

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