Seems odd that you're not getting any expertise from these all-knowing
wizards, of telling us exactly what that spike item is. It seems
large enough to be detected from orbit.

Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth


SEN... at (no spam) argo.rhein-neckar.de wrote:
It should be a topic for alt/sci/planetary, but it looks empty. I found
the spike so far only mentioned in ssh and sss.



The Mystery of the Phoenix "Spike"

In one of the first images of the Mars Phoenix Lander we see at the northern
horizon a small bright "spike". At first look it is about 12 pix high and 3
wide. But in closer look it may extend over the horizon line and may be
wider. Because of compression artifacts I cant analyse it further. It is
located here 100 pix left of 0 deg ("North"), at ca. 358.6 deg:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/phoenix/images/lg_334.jpg
This image from spaceflightnow is the only one of it I know with koordinates.

Its like
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10680.jpg
"First Look at Martian Arctic Plains"
and
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10681.jpg

booth without koordinate markings


It could be a dust devil. But it looks more sharp and destinct then we
know from this mini tornados. It could be a water/steam eruption. Aquifiers
are long suspected for Mars and some similar looking may alraedy be found
from orbit:

http://www.scireview.de/mars/


In last years MExpress, MGS and MRO found young large conic hills in the
polar region on the ice - water ice "volcanos". So a hydrothermal source
in the martian arctic seems possible. It would be interesting to see the
MRO image area north of the Phoenix Lander. It seems unpublished so far.

MRO people said the planned landing area was very extensive imaged. Despite
this, the orbiter landing site area image is the most poor NASA ever
published:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10706.jpg



The "Spike" is no Phoenix Harware.
That was mentioned to the press and reported there. But MROs HiRISE camera
acquired this image of the Phoenix landing site 22 hours after landing:
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/phoenix-hardware.php
(click to see the lander with the other hardware on one image)
"North is about 7 degrees to the right of straight up in this image"

Here we see the Parachute in the south and the heatshild in southeast



The Spike is not in other published images:

not in large panorama:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10735.jpg

not in normal panorama:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10726.jpg

not in final large fish-eye panorama:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10734.jpg

not in partial fish-eye panorama
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10721.jpg
but you see the location koordinates of PIA10680 there

not in partial panorama
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10712.jpg
but you see the location koordinates of PIA10680 there
and you see that 360/0 deg realy means "North"


Let see whether NASA opens the "spike" again.


## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##

It should be a topic for alt/sci/planetary, but it looks empty. I found
the spike so far only mentioned in ssh and sss.

The Mystery of the Phoenix "Spike"

In one of the first images of the Mars Phoenix Lander we see at the northern
horizon a small bright "spike". At first look it is about 12 pix high and 3
wide. But in closer look it may extend over the horizon line and may be
wider. Because of compression artifacts I cant analyse it further. It is
located here 100 pix left of 0 deg ("North"), at ca. 358.6 deg:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/phoenix/images/lg_334.jpg
This image from spaceflightnow is the only one of it I know with koordinates.

Its likehttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10680.jpg
"First Look at Martian Arctic Plains"
andhttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10681.jpg

booth without koordinate markings

It could be a dust devil. But it looks more sharp and destinct then we
know from this mini tornados. It could be a water/steam eruption. Aquifiers
are long suspected for Mars and some similar looking may alraedy be found
from orbit:

http://www.scireview.de/mars/

In last years MExpress, MGS and MRO found young large conic hills in the
polar region on the ice - water ice "volcanos". So a hydrothermal source
in the martian arctic seems possible. It would be interesting to see the
MRO image area north of the Phoenix Lander. It seems unpublished so far.

MRO people said the planned landing area was very extensive imaged. Despite
this, the orbiter landing site area image is the most poor NASA ever
published:http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10706.jpg

The "Spike" is no Phoenix Harware.
That was mentioned to the press and reported there. But MROs HiRISE camera
acquired this image of the Phoenix landing site 22 hours after landing:http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/phoenix-hardware.php
(click to see the lander with the other hardware on one image)
"North is about 7 degrees to the right of straight up in this image"

Here we see the Parachute in the south and the heatshild in southeast

The Spike is not in other published images:

not in large panorama:http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10735.jpg

not in normal panorama:http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10726.jpg

not in final large fish-eye panorama:http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10734.jpg

not in partial fish-eye panoramahttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10721.jpg
but you see the location koordinates of PIA10680 there

not in partial panoramahttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10712.jpg
but you see the location koordinates of PIA10680 there
and you see that 360/0 deg realy means "North"

Let see whether NASA opens the "spike" again.

## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##

Since no one's responded, I might as well. Assuming that you're
serious, look VERY closely at the edge of the picture both directly
above and below the 'spike'. The 'spike' appears right where two
seperate images are joined therefore is most likely to be a
photographical artifact.

This warping produces digital artifacts along the edges of the
individual images, making it appear that many more images were used in
the creation of the composite. It is a coincidence that the "spike"
should appear to lie exactly on one of these fictitious joins. There is
in fact no mis-registration along this, or any other fictitious join,
which might otherwise suggest separate images.