Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: I don't think so...

re: I don't think so...
TB — (archived)

I'm way out of my depth on the exact tech used by the imaging system, but if you had a large bright field of view with a lot of different values, there may be a digital "range" assigned to a given picture by the orbiter computers (like a photographer taking a light reading and setting his f-stop). Anything too dark would be washed out entirely off the low end, and appear as black no matter how you goosed up the final image brightness.

Same reason you never see stars on a Moon picture (although that's film, not digital). The f-stop required to get a working picture on the bright surface would never pick up such dim details.

I'm pretty sure we're looking at a hole or a very deep crater that is just too dark under the unique lighting conditions present in that image to see details.

Frankly, this is much more realistic than trying to figure out what in the world could make a whole crater so bright that it would digitally wash out the entire crater as a black circle. A giant laser?

If the scientists want to, it will be simple to arrange photos of these objects so the sun is nearly overhead. "pb" has already pointed out a more normal picture of the object dubbed "Dena," with light reaching what appears to be the floor of a deep crater.

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