New hole on Mars found by students

credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

It seems that young and curious eyes can see things that more experienced ones cannot. A group of students from California discovered a mysterious hole on the surface of Mars. Experts think the hole could be the skylight of a large lava tube. The students were developing a research project using an image taken by the camera of the Mars Odyssey orbiter when they found the round black spot on the surface. You can read more about the discovery here.

Another news about Martian exploration is that the Phoenix Mars lander doesn't seem to have survived the harsh winter conditions. (Earlier about the Phoenix on lucidenglish) According to this article, the lander's solar panels were severely damaged by the accumulated ice. At least, that's what the images taken by the Mars Odyssey orbiter suggest.

You can download a fill-in the gap exercise for the simplified version of the text here.

Strange and Beautiful Pictures of Mars

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.