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Space Science

A Detailed Picture Of "Inca City" 12

Illuminati Member writes "Space.com has an article that shows off new, high quality pictures, from the Mars Global Surveyor, that shows what Inca City truely is. In 1972 the Mariner 9 took some snapshots of Mars and one picture showed ridges formed in a peculier manner. This was eventually dubbed 'inca city' for its unusual formation. Now, the MGS has given us the true picture of this anomaly. Interesting thing was how the formations could possibly be more proof of the existance of water. The intensity as the picture was beamed to us from the satellite was high, and the excitment at what it showed was grand."
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A Detailed Picture Of "Inca City"

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  • by jungd ( 223367 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:11AM (#4462344)

    It would be better if the new high-res pictures could be more easily identified with the originals (I know it is hard with the difference in lighting angles, etc.)

    I can just imagine what the conspiracy theorists are thinking now - 'those are not pictures of the same features - cover up! cover up!'

    • I can just imagine what the conspiracy theorists are thinking now - 'those are not pictures of the same features - cover up! cover up!'

      No easy way to stop this, even if we could place them en masse right by the formations - if what they saw didn't match their expectations (read: delusions) they will still find a way to deny it.
      This is a pretty common problem for humans, I can remember reading a good book on the most famous faked scientific discoveries and how 'selective reporting' and 'interpretation' made fools of many intelligent people.

      Still, there could be a conspiracy...
  • It's a nice city. I think i'd like to go there someday as long as i'm not riding any russian spacecraft [slashdot.org].
  • Cydonian City? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Cydonian ( 603441 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:22AM (#4462439) Homepage Journal

    I'm presuming this "Incan city" is same as the City in Cydonia, near the Face [lunaranomalies.com].

    No, don't look at my nick.

    But seriously folks, I've always found interesting the way we seek anthropomorphic images in almost everything. Not to flame believers out there, but I'd say that there's very little difference between techno-myths such as this and the ancients looking at the sky and believing that, say, a certain group of stars resemble two twins [stardate.org].

    (Incidentally, the link on Gemini says that "many" cultures see two humans in those stars; I'm not sure about others, but Arabic and Indic schools of astronomy were greatly influenced by Graeco - Chaldean traditions in the 5th century AD. One of the bigger imports are 12 solar constellations. Does anyone know if Mayan or *real* Incan astronomical traditions have anything similarly anthropomorphic?)

    • I think these are different objects; I think the Inca City is a southern formation, while the Cydonia area of Mars is in the northern hemisphere.

      As for Maya constellations, it's been a long time since I've actually seen the names, but IIRC, they tended to be animals, so I doubt that Gemini was represented as twin humans.

  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @11:29AM (#4462507) Homepage
    One photo is among the highest-resolution ever obtained...It resolves the surface to 5 feet (1.5 meters) per pixel...Objects the size of school buses can be seen in the full size image, the scientists say, though there is no evidence for any such transportation devices on the planet.
    You know, they had to put that last part in there because, otherwise, some tabloid would summarize the whole article as "Evidence of school buses found on Mars!"
  • Humanity's vision (Score:2, Insightful)

    by verag ( 617874 )
    Interesting is our nature to see familiar shapes/structures in constellations and images of other planets and moons. It seems we have also, in general, created the goal of exploration and discovery on those planets. Paramount in this pursuit is the search for life and, as its prerequisite (so far as we can tell), water. With the discovery of water comes the viability of visiting mars and personally exploring it. The human need for a frontier seems very much alive and well.
  • Delusions!? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Conare ( 442798 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @12:42PM (#4463038) Journal
    What do you mean delusions? There [parascope.com] is [adrax.com] no [newmexico.org] way [uky.edu] that that could be a natural formation. I mean really! [visitwhitemountains.com]
  • "liquid hot magma" --Doctor Evil
  • Water? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2002 @03:18PM (#4464159) Homepage Journal
    So water exists on Mars. This is fairly fascinating.

    Granted H(2)O is required for sustaining life, but water can theoretically exist on any planet without sustaining life, yesno? That there's water, AFAIK, doesn't mean there is life.

    Troll me if you will, but consider that the media has a habit of reporting half of the information in their attempt to jack up their ratings before you do.

    • Depending, the chances you'll have life in an envirenment with Liquid water are extremely high, and according to the evolutionary theory, almost impossible to not have life. There was Ice supposedly found on one of Jupiter's moons a while back (somewhere on slashdot), but it's unlikely there's any life there do to extreme temperatures. Of course, mars is more moderate.

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