This might as well be taken as another picture puzzle, if you wish. Only this time the solution will be given instantly.
( picture from here )
At first glance, I thought this was a tattoo on somebody's ...well... something. Then the more I looked at it the less I knew what I was actually looking at. I was quite relieved to find out that I was actually staring at another planet. That should explain this feeling of uncertainty and bewilderment, shouldn't it?
The picture shows a Martian dune and the dark lines (which I took for the tattoo) were left by the passages of dust devils.
So, who took this picture and why? In 2005, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was sent to Mars to study the history of water on the planet. According to NASA's overview of the MRO, the orbiter has a camera which can identify objects as big as a dinner table from the orbiting distance of 300 kilometers. Last week, a photography site called 'The Big Picture' published 35 spellbinding pictures that the HiRISE (MRO's high resolution camera) had taken of the Martian surface. Below the pictures you can see the explanations of the different formations and a direct link to Google Mars in case you feel like tagging the location for your next holiday. If you would like to see how the boundaries of art and science are washed away by these superb pictures visit their picture series here.
And now I wanted to embed the David Bowie song, 'Life on Mars?' here. However, the best version is not possible to embed. You can still listen to it and watch it following the link. What I am going to put up here instead is the (in my opinion:) best cover of that song by Seu Jorge. It is in Portuguese but writing of Mars and other strange things I thought once I can make an exception. You can find an English translation here.
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