Editing Talk:2462: NASA Award

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Possibly a reference to this? (I'm sure there are other examples, though.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(Mars) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.100|172.70.34.100]] 04:25, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
:More likely it's this recent nonsense: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a36356445/mushrooms-on-mars-nasa-photos-life-on-mars/ [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.229|162.158.187.229]] 05:42, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
::I agree. I saw this headline as a feed from Yahoo and thought, "Mushrooms on Mars? That can't possibly be true." Then I read the article and thought, "OMG, it could be true." Then I read an article debunking it and thought, "So sad, it's not true after all." [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 01:40, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Ironically, while many of us are still holding out for visible space fauna, practically every test we've constructed to check for the biochemical ''signs'' of life has returned positive results. Even as far back as the Viking landers, we've been sending out probes & conducting tests, designed to detect trace compositions ''only known to form via biological processes'', & over & over we find those traces right where one would expect. From otherwise inexplicably high methane production, to complex sugars forming around a distant star, it often appears that the universe may be ''teeming'' with life, & we simply haven't collected it somewhere so observable as a petri dish, yet. As near as I can tell, the only reason we haven't declared "extraterrestrial life confirmed" is because we keep raising the bar for proving it. At this rate, I feel like we could discover martian sunflowers & honeybees, & somehow there would still be some question of "Yeah, but are they really truly technically & inarguably ''alive'', exactly? What is life, anyway?" ... So far, I'm not aware of many chemical tests performed to check for signs of life in space which ''didn't'' detect signs of life? 
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 08:12, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
:The ultimate test for life is if it tries to prove that you are alive. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:16, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Ponytail gives a rock as a prize, but tells Hairy that from an angle it can look like a Nobel. She is using the same semantics when people look at Mars photos and recognize structures or figures in oddly shape rocks. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.131|162.158.158.131]] 09:30, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
:I'm surprised there's no wikilink to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia yet, in the explanation (or straight to the #Mimetoliths section, even, though that's a slightly different aspect of the same coin as the comic intends). But the rewrite I'd want to do to the Explanation is far more extensive (shuffling, mostly, with only minor editorialising and 'correction') than the time I have right now, if I want to do it well, so I'll leave this until later or let someone else grasp the nettle and perhaps add Pareidolia/similar references themselves?  (Honestly, I keep getting YouTube 'recommendations' of stuff like "We've found a pipe* on Mars!" (*i.e. the tobacco kind) which is basically just someone doing the equivalent of saying that a particular cloud in the (Earthly) sky looks like an elephant. Sorta-maybe-for-a-few-seconds-before-it-doesn't-again.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.61|141.101.98.61]] 12:39, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

When I was a kid I thought Mount Rushmore was a natural formation. Actually, I'm ashamed to admit how old I was when I realized it _wasn't_ one. Now I know that I can blame "Pareidolia." [[User:Gbisaga|Gbisaga]] ([[User talk:Gbisaga|talk]]) 13:27, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
:That actually sounds like the OPPOSITE of pareidolia, whatever one would call such a thing. (The interwebs suggest it might be a form of prosopagnosia, or "face blindness", whereby you would fail to see the obvious familiar face(s) as something familiar...)[[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 16:12, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
::No, face blindness would be something completely different. What happened is that Gbisaga was aware of pareidolia (despite not knowing the word for it) and based on that knowledge was suspicious even to cases which were not result of pareidolia. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:16, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Someone should update the description to include the recent "discovery" of mushrooms on mars.

I thought the point of the title text is that someone sends their personal digital camera to Mars. When you look through its album, it will still have the pictures that they took on Earth. But you ignore the timing and claim that this shows life on Mars. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
:No no, NASA builds cameras and land them on Mars, we call these cameras space probes or Mars rowers. It is for sure not pictures taken from the Earth on that camera that is referred to. I have updated the explanation to mention this clearly. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

This seems to be related to [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351252619_Fungi_on_Mars_Evidence_of_Growth_and_Behavior_From_Sequential_Images Fungi on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior From Sequential Images] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.109|172.69.33.109]] 15:14, 14 May 2021 (UTC)