Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Mystery Photo

Ten points to the first person who can correctly state what this is a photo of.
 
Or have I already put this photo on my blog?
 

 
 

14 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I have a few theories, but can you give us a hint? Is this a picture you took yourself or is this something you cam across elsewhere?

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  3. It is a photo I found on the Web. It was taken using very sophisticated equipment.

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  4. At first I thought it may have been a satellite photo of fresh water mixing with sea water...but certain details perplexed me. I then thought it may be a satellite photo of a desert, but still had the same doubts. I then started thinking on a much smaller scale. I still think I am wrong because I have questions about certain details. My best guess is that it is a photo of tattoo ink from inside of the epidermis looking out.

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  5. It appears to me to be a nearly closed eye, from the eye's point of view. But I would not be willing to put any money on that guess.

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  6. I cheated and found the answer. Boy was I wrong.

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  7. ...but believe me, after I cheated I was enormously tempted to pass off an accurate answer as a guess.

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  8. I'm mystified as to how you can cheat. You're possibly more technically advanced than I am. I tried doing a Google search under some of the stuff that pops up under "properties" but got nothing, although I didn't exhaust the possibilities there.

    Brian, you are on the right track with "satellite photo of a desert."

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  9. I was also thinking it may be a photo of Mars showing past deposition.

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  10. I don't know about the deposition element, but you are correct with Mars. But what are the curly squiggles? That's what I think is the coolest part.

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  11. It's not shadow because it looks like the sand itself is actually darker. If it's anything like earth, it may be a darker sediment, like basalt, being blown around and scattered in cool patterns.

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  12. Close enough, geologist.

    They are photos taken from orbit around Mars (I forget what took them--maybe the Mars Global Surveyor?). The curly lines are tracks in the red dust made by dust devils, which lift up the dust and expose the darker basalt sand beneath.

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  13. the only thing that kept perplexing me was the band of light blue across the middle and the black "hatching" lines. It almost looks man made.

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  14. I pasted the ESP_014426_2070-726123 into Google, got nothing, then tried with just part of it (starting with 2070, I think) and found it on a University of Arizona site. Then I was mightily tempted to write "hmmm, I'm not sure, but it appears to me as if it might be the dunes of Mars. And those might be the tracks of dust devils, but if so I am stunned by the quality of the images..." etc.

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I'm eager to hear your thoughts!