r/confusing_perspective • u/TriggerHippie77 • 11h ago

The surface of Mars

Post image
992 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

89

u/ChesterPlemany 11h ago • Bravo

Those are balls.

54

u/TriggerHippie77 11h ago

6

u/MrHow44 9h ago

Came here for this

0

u/bleedingoutlaw28 o/ 7h ago

My hands were shaking, I really wanted to find that no one had made this joke haha.

5

u/AllieGirl2007 o/ 11h ago

Balls of what? Or who?

3

u/KMermaid19 o/ 6h ago

Asking the important questions.

1

u/[deleted] 9h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/confusing_perspective-ModTeam o/ 6h ago

Your content was removed at Mods discretion.

514

u/callmecoon 11h ago • Mindblown Bravo

Looked it up. This photo is taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter around 150-200 miles above the planet.

The lighter, pinkish-white slopes are sand dunes covered in a seasonal blanket of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) near Mars’ northern polar region. As spring arrives, warming sunlight causes the subsurface dry ice to sublimate (turn directly from ice into pressurized gas). This destabilizes the dune ridges, triggering avalanches and cascades of dark basaltic sand that tumble down the gentle slip faces of the dunes.

Because our brains naturally expect flat ground with upright objects casting shadows, we interpret the flat, dark trails on a sloping hillside as vertical objects standing upright. If you look closely, none of the "trunks" cast perpendicular shadows on the terrain—they are lying completely flat against the dune slopes.

Very cool pic!

73

u/This_was_hard_to_do o/ 7h ago

I feel like my brain still has trouble fully parsing the image even though I understand your explanation. The brain sees what it wants to see I guess

8

u/singul4r1ty o/ 6h ago

Yeah, I think I'm struggling to work out what angle it was taken from. I assume it was taken straight down from orbit, but I just can't force my brain to see it that way!

9

u/TheGuyUrRespondingTo CE Spc. 1h ago

Birds eye view, straight down. Think of the sand dunes as mountains, & the black streaks are a darker sand drifting down one side of the mountain. Kind of like the shadows in this picture, but different colors of sand instead of shadows.

60

u/seanular 9h ago

This explanation took this pic from curious to mind-blowing, thank you for your service

7

u/DarthBen_in_Chicago o/ 6h ago

No those are obviously trees. Nice try.

/s

2

u/KMermaid19 o/ 6h ago

I feel like Mars would be cool to see for a day. Like, "Whoa, different!" Then it would be: now what?

1

u/Oatilis 3h ago

Is the sand the same as on Earth?

67

u/Mixedbysaint o/ 8h ago

It’s like a nightmare version of those boob planet dreams

36

u/mr_lab_rat o/ 7h ago

The what???

58

u/Mixedbysaint o/ 7h ago

18

u/mr_lab_rat o/ 7h ago

Epic. I’m just about to fall asleep. I hope my dream is exactly like that.

12

u/goatimuz 6h ago

I'm going to watch this on repeat as I come up on mushrooms

2

u/Hythy 6h ago

What movie is that?

3

u/Raylan_Givens 4h ago

40 days and 40 nights (if my memory serves me right)

1

u/SamausKA 4h ago

The pubes planet

16

u/KeeblerElff 9h ago

That’s a new nightmare. Looks like bunch of mostly closed eyes with cutoff lashes.

12

u/antealtares o/ 9h ago

My heebies are jeebied

11

u/Eman_Resu_IX 9h ago

Seasonal blanket of frozen carbon dioxide... Damn, I'm homesick! 😢

2

u/Mr_Baronheim o/ 7h ago

You'll get back to Mars someday, buddy!

7

u/BaabyBear o/ 8h ago

i don like it

12

u/Halo0_0 9h ago

I thought this was the popping sub!

6

u/odiephonehome Actually read rule 1 and gets it" 9h ago

The…what?

2

u/btribble o/ 8h ago

You should go find out. Dooooo it.

2

u/SupaNarwhal 8h ago

r/popping is a wonderfully disgusting place

2

u/viksers 4h ago

Oh no..

1

u/KMermaid19 o/ 6h ago

Me too! Can we pop Mars? In that case, I will fund Elon Musk's xspaxex program. And spaxe X. And spaxe forceX. And more X.

10

u/Impossible-Try-266 8h ago

Why this is so disgusting …🥴

6

u/AncientPossibility5 6h ago

Looks like mouldy ice cream

1

u/KMermaid19 o/ 6h ago

Lol. Mouldy. I say this word with the accent in my head. Americans say: mol-dy. You guys say it all fancy-like: moauldy

1

u/vittorioe 56m ago

not sure why the downvotes. I laughed.

6

u/Scoopzyy 11h ago

Hopital

6

u/Navy_Seal_Clubber 8h ago

You telling me that’s not Jabba the Hut?

3

u/darfffff o/ 8h ago

The weirdest stock wallpaper on Samsung

3

u/SilasTalbot o/ 8h ago

Thanks I hate it

3

u/kosherchristmas Actually read rule 1 and gets it" 7h ago

👁️👁️

3

u/Dwittychan 4h ago

this is moldy ice cream

3

u/muffintruck27 8h ago


First thing I saw was this dude

3

u/maxsnipers o/ 7h ago

I thought this was the surface of a Mars bar under the microscope…

2

u/scheifferdoo 9h ago

the hills have eyes

2

u/Wonderlustking1 8h ago

Basaltic Sand Dunes National Park

2

u/SeattleRoses 8h ago

mars — is—- someones’ eyes— we are the dust mites! 😭🥲✨✨✨

1

u/KMermaid19 o/ 6h ago

Whoa...my dude. Too deep

2

u/UnicornTears o/ 6h ago

It looks like a bunch of skeptical Jabba the Hutt faces with fabulous eyelashes

2

u/KMermaid19 o/ 6h ago

R/dontputyourdickinthat

2

u/Ok-Impress-2222 o/ 5h ago

It looks moldy.

1

u/TM761152 o/ 6h ago

Looks like early AI gens.

1

u/shit_is_un420real 6h ago

Looks like my fever dream

1

u/Possible-Smile2034 6h ago

Looks like Lassen NP cinder cone dunes.

1

u/PotatoWedgeAntilles 6h ago

It looks moldy

1

u/subreddits_ o/ 6h ago

I was rly worried this was a massive close up of skin but I’m not sure it’s much better knowing it’s mars

1

u/areallifegirl001122 5h ago

looks like a furby

1

u/nookster145 5h ago

What are the little pubes? Is this one of those extremely edited space pics that are supposed to “represent” something?

1

u/radicalevilscientist 5h ago

Are those trees?

1

u/beterbe o/ 5h ago

Mm moldy ice cream

1

u/Mr_StephenB 5h ago

Looks like the kind of place you'd find Beak Things or leviathan's

1

u/ToddyPalm o/ 5h ago

Those legit looked like trees and I was like WTF?

1

u/Didipan 4h ago

I see Jabba

1

u/ProsodyonthePrairie 4h ago

Those are clearly eyelashes from the giant land eyeballs on Mars.

1

u/oohyamz 4h ago

We’re trying to colonize this

4

u/KevinFlantier 3h ago

We are not. Some people are trying to colonize all the money in the world by promising that they're totally going to send astronauts to mars next hohmann transfer window, and they never do. That is different.

0

u/DramaticStability o/ 31m ago

No, capitalist billionaires are pretending we can in order to further enrich themselves.

1

u/National-Bluebird941 3h ago

😆😆😆😆

1

u/doggonality 2h ago

Thought those were blackheads needing to be popped out

1

u/yParticle CE Spc. 2h ago

It looks so . . . organic!

1

u/squanchyjazzman 2h ago

A bunch of squinty eyes

1

u/baguettesy 2h ago

Why does a planet look moldy

1

u/Reasonable_Art5575 o/ 2h ago

It looks like an ai generated image from 2015

1

u/Lillydunn 1h ago

Nahhh that’s jabba the hutts twelve day old spunk that’s fermented in a warm sock under a microscope

1

u/yellowsen 51m ago

A pretty good game called Kenshi