Darn, that second image is just a thumbnail, and seems to be a photo of a photo, complete with human hand. Wish I could see the actual image somewhere.

Planetary scientist William Hartmann wrote a novel a few years back, "The Martian Underground", that was a treat for somebody who pores obsessively over Mars images, because much of the plot revolved around the search for something on Mars using orbital imagery. Along the way, Hartmann introduced the mystery of the Mars-2 parachutes, and intimated that they'd been spotted blowing across the surface of Mars as long ago as some old Viking images.

Well, having access to Viking images, I went looking at the coordinates he gave, and sure enough I found images from three successive orbits showing a bright speck moving across Mars, seemingly blown along by the wind.

I was jazzed...until I looked at some images before and after my finds (backward and forward along the orbital track), and there was that bright spot again, thousands of klicks away, but at the same location in the image frame.

There was a speck of dust floating around inside the Viking camera.

I'm sure Hartmann knew all about it, and he must've gotten quite a chuckle from suckering people like me into "finding" Mars-2 again. The experience really reinforced the need to be careful interpreting images of Mars.

From its trajectory, Mars-2 was presumed to have landed (smacked) somewere around 45S, 310W. There may yet be some sign of it discovered in a high-res image some day, maybe an unusual crater with a bright parachute tangled on some rocks nearby. Who knows, any old amateur could discover it. Even though the Viking images are an urban legend, it has to be there somewhere.

--Robert