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Mysterious Martian Plumes Discovered By Amateur Astronomers

Posted by samzenpus on from the mars-needs-bbq dept.

An anonymous reader writes Amateur astronomers have spotted two clouds coming from the surface of Mars that are a mystery to the professionals. From Discovery: "The plumes extended over 500- to 1,000 kilometers (311- to 621 miles) in both north-south and east-west directions and changed in appearance daily. They were detected as the sun breached Mars' horizon in the morning, but not when it set in the evening. 'Remarkably ... the features changed rapidly, their shapes going from double blob protrusions to pillars or finger-plume-like morphologies,' scientists investigating the sightings wrote in a paper published in this week's Nature."

62 comments

  1. The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by cirby · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...are a Million to One.

    1. Re: The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by chlorinekid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us...

    2. Re: The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by gtall · · Score: 1

      ALIENS!! Cue the Greek guy with the electric hair, he'll want to have a team at Roswell to welcome them.

    3. Re: The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by NJRoadfan · · Score: 1

      Cue the dramatic music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    4. Re:The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the fragile reality of Discworld, and with the gods who like to play games, a million-to-one chance succeeds nine times out of ten.
      -Terry Pratchett

    5. Re:The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by shione · · Score: 1

      It's Douglas Quaid (or is it Carl Hauser?) putting his hand print on the reactor controls!!!!

      My eyes!! My eyes!!! It's like I am sneezing with my eyelids open!!!

    6. Re: The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by Rei · · Score: 1

      You're supposed to include a picture every time you mention him ;)

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
    7. Re:The Chances of Anything Coming From Mars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But still, they come...

  2. It's farts ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 0

    ... from the rovers.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:It's farts ... by Mariner28 · · Score: 1

      Donuts, dude. Everyone knows a solar-powered vehicle doesn't fart... Dust from donuts should be a lot better ever since the other aliens hopped it up with monster rims after the first aliens jacked the tires. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      "A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
  3. First cylinder arrives by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and in other news, a strange cylindrical object appears to have crash-landed in Horsell common, UK.

    1. Re:First cylinder arrives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Minds "immeasurably superior" to humans', and they prefer bloody Woking to Mars?!

    2. Re:First cylinder arrives by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 0

      Minds "immeasurably superior" to humans', and they prefer bloody Woking to Mars?!

      Thanks, that just made my day.

  4. H.G. Wells anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    "No one would have believed in the [second decade of the 21st century] that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."

  5. this is how that old book started by turkeydance · · Score: 2

    "That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. I saw it."

    1. Re:this is how that old book started by earthminion · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, I asked Ogilvy (an astronomer) and he said there's nothing to worry about.

    2. Re:this is how that old book started by gtall · · Score: 2

      Nah, Mel Brooks is refilming Blazing Saddles on Mars to keep it secret before it hits the movie houses.

    3. Re:this is how that old book started by peragrin · · Score: 1

      That makes no sense. If you had said he was filming the Jews in space sequences of history of the world part 2, then it is believable.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    4. Re:this is how that old book started by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, 'as flaming gases rushed out of a gun.'"

    5. Re: this is how that old book started by jd2112 · · Score: 1

      Actually it's Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money.

      --
      Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    6. Re:this is how that old book started by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's referring the beans around the campfire scene.

    7. Re: this is how that old book started by WilliamGeorge · · Score: 1

      Nope - Spaceballs III: The Search for Spaceballs II :)

      --
      William George
    8. Re: this is how that old book started by shione · · Score: 1

      That's easy to find Spaceball II. It is here on this video cassette tape.

      Colonel Sandurz: Try here. Stop.
      Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
      Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.
      Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
      Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
      Dark Helmet: When?
      Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now now.
      Dark Helmet: Go back to then.
      Colonel Sandurz: When?
      Dark Helmet: Now.
      Colonel Sandurz: Now?
      Dark Helmet: Now.
      Colonel Sandurz: I can't.
      Dark Helmet: Why?
      Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
      Dark Helmet: When?
      Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
      Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
      Colonel Sandurz: Soon.
      Dark Helmet: How soon?

  6. The Martians by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

    Are roasting marshmallows.

    1. Re:The Martians by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      or dead rovers

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:The Martians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Valentine Michael Smith knew first-hand that they are still around.
      (from the book "A stranger in a strange land")

  7. Volcanos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The article is a little light on scientific details, has anyone ruled out some kind of volcanic eruption?

    1. Re:Volcanos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes.

      I'm a geologist; I should know.

    2. Re:Volcanos? by Rei · · Score: 1

      Yeah, well I'm a scientician, and I say the evidence suggests a martian supereruption!

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
    3. Re:Volcanos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The article is a little light on scientific details, has anyone ruled out some kind of volcanic eruption?

      Nature has opened the actual article for free access online and that has the details, including

      For particles reflecting solar radiation, clouds of CO2-ice or H2O-ice particles with an effective radius of 0.1 micrometres are favoured over dust. Alternatively, the plume could arise from auroral emission, of a brightness more than 1,000 times that of the Earth’s aurora, over a region with a strong magnetic anomaly where aurorae have previously been detected7. Importantly, both explanations defy our current understanding of Mars’ upper atmosphere.

      It sounds more like a geyser plume to me (ice, not dust) but, if so, it's an awful big one. Hopefully, HiRise should be able to find the source.

    4. Re:Volcanos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I'm a geologist; I should know.

      Pffft. I want an opinion from an *areologist*, tyvm.

  8. Martian's brewing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Morning coffee. Over a fire.

  9. CO2 Crystals. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Would explain why they were only visible in the morning, since co2 would vaporize during the day.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  10. It's a planet fart by ozduo · · Score: 0

    eating too many Pluto pups will do that!

    --
    I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
  11. Great set up for a scifi by Bismuthprince · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With the touchdown of the last mars Rover, an ancient Martian atmosphere reconstructing process has accidentally been triggered, as the planet thinks it's ancient inhabitors have returned.

    1. Re:Great set up for a scifi by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      There might be an angle of truth to this because the probes sent may have inadvertently seeded Mars with microbes that are beginning to transform it on a large scale. Look how invasive species gum up the balance of our life patterns on Earth.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Great set up for a scifi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope you are joking.

    3. Re:Great set up for a scifi by azcoyote · · Score: 1

      Not bad--I'd watch it.

      --
      Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
    4. Re:Great set up for a scifi by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      The pace per this incident probably is unrealistic, but the concept itself is not. Our sterilization technology is known to be imperfect.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    5. Re:Great set up for a scifi by Rei · · Score: 1

      Thankfully for Mars, it has excellent sterilization of its own. And not just the heat of aerocapture; the regolith is full of peroxides.

      I really don't think Earth life could spread on Mars just from a couple of poorly sterilized probes. Perhaps given enough generations life could adapt to Martian environment, but there's not going to be any "generations" when there's no suitable environment for reproduction to begin with. It's like dropping a few bacteria into a container of bleach and expecting them to just evolve into bleach-eaters on the spot.

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
    6. Re:Great set up for a scifi by Rei · · Score: 1

      It should also be added that one should expect any life on vastly different planets to be vastly different to life on Earth, just because the environments are so different; trying to shoehorn Earth life into an alien environment is a poor fit. Martian surface life would need to be highly peroxide, radiation, and cold tolerant. I remember when people were worrying about microbes contaminating Titan with the Huygens probe - as if Earth microbes would suddenly adapt to an environment with no oxygen or CO2 and temperatures cold enough to liquify methane. Any life on Titan would have to have a chemistry totally unlike that on Earth to survive the cold, and would need to metabolize ethane, acetylene, and other hydrocarbons with hydrogen to produce methane - a metabolic cycle not found on Earth (curiously, there is some very interesting evidence that that might actually be happening on Titan... but that is neither here nor there)

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
    7. Re:Great set up for a scifi by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 1

      Our sterilization technology is known to be imperfect.

      Don't let NOMAD hear you say that.

  12. They're pissed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... that we're planning to colonize their planet.

  13. Meteor, anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why isn't anyone saying a strike by large scale meteor with a companion meteor? That would certainly kick up a couple plumes of that size.

    Any of the devices we have at location able to report seismic activity for something of that order?

    1. Re:Meteor, anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because meteors don't repeat at the same place. Mars is moving, and rotating, and the two plumes are separated by almost a month (12 March and 6th April, 2012). Your companion meteor would thus have to be timed to hit at the same time of day two spots separated by about 40 million km.

  14. Life imitates art by blacksmith_tb · · Score: 1

    I say moholes: http://kimstanleyrobinson.info...

  15. Quaid's activated the reactor! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    :)

  16. Pretty sure we have it on tape... by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  17. Boffins Baffled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NEWS FLASH, not hot flashes, Story At 04:00 GMT.

    Boffins Sneaking on Mars are Baffled!

    "Mysterious Myst" covers Mars ... WHAT THE FUCK! Who ordered this, Boffins Say.

    US, German, Italian, Japan and Brazilian and Oz Boffins have got their panties tied in a sumptuous knot up their "Back Orifice" Ha Ha.

    Hot Line Emergency, Line Call to Barak Hussein Obama, no kin to Saddam, "Obama ! What The Fuck ! I inserted the "Steely Dan" and I am now having "Hot Flashes !" Please respond. Please Advise. Yours Truly Angela [fmr Minister East German Democratic Party of the Socialists Soviet]. "

    Hoy Hoy

  18. Pics or it didn't happen. by lindseyp · · Score: 1

    Would it be too much to include a pic of said plumes, that are 'said' to have been 'spotted' several times?

    --
    j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
    1. Re: Pics or it didn't happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I found the pics quite easily. They were cunningly concealed to the left of the text in tfa.

    2. Re:Pics or it didn't happen. by Daemonic · · Score: 1

      Pics on p2 of article.

  19. clouds of destruction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The chubb chubbs are coming.

  20. Where's the kaboom? by jpellino · · Score: 1

    Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  21. Asteroids? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    Mars atmosphere being much thinner than Earth's, a not-so-big asteroid - which would be destroyed on Earth by the thick atmosphere - may cause such plumes on Mars.

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  22. hey, I'm..., like, a secret agent or something... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I loved Christopher Walken in that movie!
    I like the part where they make everybody think they're watching a totally different movie because of the false memory implant, that was genius!

  23. Curiosity and Opportunity Teams Racing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Things get boring in the control room after hours...

  24. Mars plumes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go to the Mars observers on YouTube for the correct explaination of the Martian atmospheric plumes

  25. Cheech & Chong Found On Mars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Planet Mars covered in mysterious fog.