holes on mars

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From the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD) site:

"Black spots have been discovered on Mars that are so dark that nothing inside can be seen. Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist. The unusual hole pictured above (here is the picture they're talking about) was found on the slopes of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons. The above image was captured three weeks ago by the HiRISE instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars. The holes were originally identified on lower resolution images from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, The above hole is about the size of a football field and is so deep that it is completely unilluminated by the Sun. Such holes and underground caves might be prime targets for future spacecraft, robots, and even the next generation of human interplanetary explorers."

Someone did a rather piss-poor job making this hoax. It's not even good enough to be called hoax, just a fake.

Way to go! Copy/Paste!

If it's a hoax, a lot of people are in on it.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/ ... 94112.aspx

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070528.html

Look at the image in the link provided by gwenevyn. You will notice that it is the same base image as she has included in her post, but the image in her post has additional "holes" that are obviously copy/pasted, resized versions of the first "hole." Even the original hole looks fake and does not correspond to the surrounding geography which appears to be rock and gravel.

Here I point out the original hole which can be noted by it's proximity to a bright streak on the Martian surface which I have point to with a red arrow.

...and I think I see an alien smiling at us in the lower right corner. haha

Looks real to me. Build a dome on it and lets move in.

So did we land on the moon?

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000984/

It could be the launch tubes for martian missiles. The aliens gotta defend their land somehow. Security through obscurity won't save them anymore!

If this is real then it is interesting.

It's World Of The Worlds in action.



[Cross-thread reference]

Or evidence that burrowing space worms really do exist. Whichever.

This is the original image, with the real hole.



I think that's remarkable enough, without 'shopping it.

Actually, I read somewhere that the original image is the one with several holes. According to that source, the other holes were edited out of the other image for reasons of clarity, as it was to be paired with the NASA blurb focusing on that one particular hole.

Sorry to burst your bubble. On official astronomy pages I'm seeing the one hole. It seems fairly obvious that the other image is 'shopped... all of the holes look identical, although some have been scaled.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000984/
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0705 ... rsorialday

They have found six other such holes on Mars, but they are not all in the same place, they are in different places on the planet.

It looks like someone took a hole punch to a picture of a mars image and then photocopied/scanned it.

I'll reserve judgement for now until I after I have googled this though.