Crowdsourcing Mars Images 17
alancronin writes "In conjunction with BBC's recent astronomy television program Stargazing Live comes a citizen science project to analyze images of Mars. Zooniverse has set up a site that allows people to explore the surface of Mars in incredible detail with pictures taken from the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. HiRISE can image Mars with resolutions of 0.3 m/pixel (about 1 foot), resolving objects below a meter across."
Seasonal patterns. (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA doesn't really talk about some of the stuff which was discussed on the show last night: they repeatedly saw these markings in areas of Mars and thought that weather patterns were involved. They've asked people to classify them on a load of images, and they've noted that the pattern of marking appearance follows the local seasons: they begin to appear in the martian spring, peak during summer, slow during autumn and disappear under ice during winter. This reinforces their theory that it's to do with defrosting and sublimating CO2 ice under solar heat. There were a few quick comments in the show about getting some of the data published.
There's also an Interesting Feature marker which people can use to indicate odd things. One thing they've picked out is strange colouration [planetfour.org] in some of the markings.
Stargazing Live (Score:4, Interesting)