qmantoo, you cannot debunk visual evidence, no matter how misleadingly trained your language can be.

Note when I say"you" I am doing it in a figurative sense not meaning you, qmantoo.

-- Frutty

The Square Area In Which Allegedly The Parachute And The Phoenix Lander Are Shown Seconds Before Touch Down, And Which Is Shown In The Lower Left Area Cannot Be The Same Area That I Have Enlarged (even with compression artifacts clearly visible. The objects in the original square are engraved into the terrain and their distances are next to one another, in contrast with the misleading zoom in which a triangular blob has been painted along with a dot to suggest a parachute and a probe, to the distracted viewer.

"When people are not bound by the laws of logic the hogwash they herald come close to a loud squealing distressing noise"  -- Confucius


-- Frutty

The conclusions listed are all fiction derived from incomplete knowledge and incorrect assumptions, and are completely unsupported by the evidence.

Unfortunately it is always easier to cry "fake" and "phony" than to carefully examine evidence with an impartial eye.

I have attempted to educate readers on some of the details when they have clearly been misinterpreted. While the OP author will never be swayed from his opinion, I have endeavored to point out errors for the benefit of future readers who should have more than one side of the argument at hand when they draw their own conclusions.

fruitnut1 wrote:

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This is the Heimdal crater official pic, where the phoenix Lander allegedly landed, , with a square supposedly showing more detail (mainly the parachute and the Lander).

I did the same. Cut the square supposedly being amplified in the lower left corner, only to find they are completely different representations.

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You keep making unwarranted assumptions, even when you are told otherwise.

"Shown here is a a wider view of the full image, showing a 10 kilometer diameter crater informally called "Heimdall" and an improved full-resolution image of the parachute and lander."

No one ever said (until you) that the insert was created simply by zooming in on that web-posted version of the picture.

You expect a mosaic that has been posted to the web in reduced resolution (and in jpg format) will magically convert to full resolution when you zoom in on it?

fruitnut1 wrote:

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This is the landing site of the lander. The Heimdall Crater

I don;lt think the inside concave side of the crater could contain any area that flat, much less if it's located in a slope ...

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Wrong.

It's easy to jump to absolutely wrong conclusions when just looking at a single photo without understanding its context. Especially since the answer is so easy to find with simple Google searching.

"MRO's HiRISE camera acquired this dramatic oblique image of Phoenix descending on its parachute. Shown here is a a wider view of the full image, showing a 10 kilometer diameter crater informally called "Heimdall" and an improved full-resolution image of the parachute and lander.

Although it appears that Phoenix is descending into the crater, it is actually about 20 kilometers in front of the crater. It is difficult to believe that it is in front of the crater because it is so much smaller, but in reality it is, and that's a good thing because landing on the steep rocky slopes of the crater would have been far too exciting (or risky)."

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/phoenix-descent.php

Landing site versus heimdall crater location:



comes from this site, which has a nice summary of some of the technical aspects of the mission, as well as some nice photos.

Yes, these are good points Frutty. It looks as if there is nowhere for the Phoenix to land which would give it the kind of flat terrain that is suggested.

One or other of these two conflicting accounts must be wrong it seems.
Are there any other explanations to this strange discrepancy?

I forgot to leave a link to the heimdal crater image. Here it is

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA10705_modest.jpg

Additionally here is a projection of the lander from above, Wonder why it's not shining like in the picture from 2008 . But no doubt the terrain is very rugged indeed.

-- Frutty

Some information to dispel misconceptions and mistaken assumptions from earlier in the topic.

1. The description of the terrain gradient is wrong. The area is globally level with localized terrain variations on the order of 1 foot.



High resolution image at http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230863main_PSP_008591_2485_RGB_Lander_labeled.jpg showing global level terrain.

2. Phoenix had a parachute that slowed its decent through the atmosphere (from 12 km at Mach 1.7 to 1 km at 125 MPH). It then used 12 descent thrusters to get to the surface performing manuevers to specifically avoid running into the backshell, or having the parachute drape over it after it landed.

3. Thursters of this kind do not burn the area immediatey under the lander leaving a black scortch mark. Think "hot gas" not "blowtorch." (Otherwise, the images from the subsequent digging operations would have shown scortched terrain. They didn't, but did show some rocks scooted across the soil, presumably by the thrusters.) They do, however, disturb the soil in a large (~10X Phoenix diameter) area as seen in the above image.

4. The comment that the ground appears to be growing over it is partially true. When it first landed, the spacecraft and its solar panels were pristine. It is now covered with dust making it blend into the local terrain, as we've seen with similar early vs. late images of the rovers.

The lander legs have not collapsed and the lander is not lying on the ground as was suggested. It appears that the right (East) solar panel has collapsed (hyperextended at the hinge connecting the panel to the lander body). The left (West) circular solar panel is still there, albeit covered with dust, slightly lighter than the ground under it. The position of the East solar panel is easily seen when locating it relative to the local terrain variations.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/457705main_phoenix20100524-226.jpg

This is the way that I understand the pic’s perspective. The arrows indicate the slope (gradient) of the terrain. The glowing object is suspended on a block in the middle of the slope inside a bigger depression on the precipice. Am I missing something?

Is this a view from 90 degrees respect to the Mars surface? Is this area flat?

-- Frutty

Something interesting is contained in both images - the blackened area on the terrain.
Could the black mark be a burn mark that was made just prior to the thrusters shutting down during the landing sequence?

If the terrain was scorched, the peculiar thing about this is that there are no images showing evidence of this.

Does anyone else have any ideas as to what the black area could be?

I feel pretty sure that if the orbiter captures another view of the site in two or three years that there will be nothing left of the craft and the evidence that Phoenix landed at that particular location will be erased for ever.

Its total disappearance will not be down to ice or metal fatigue, but due to a phenomenon that scientists have yet to comprehend and understand.

Maybe the figure below can shed more insight into this uncanny, unprecedented phenomenon.

I must recognize that previously I thought that the Lander had turned into a scarecrow. But now I tend to agree more with Q’s view.

There’s nothing left of our friend!

1-Concept artist painting of the Phoenix Lander

2-Concept artist painting composite on official area where the Lander should be.

3-Further zoom into the official area where our friend should be.

I have a feeling that my original hunch is correct.

The lander is being demolished bit-by-bit by an army of the indigenous population and not through ice as claimed by the scientists.

Anyway, here is the same picture as above with some 'curiosities' circled.

Oops! I forgot to leave a link to the original "story"

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/05_25_10_pr.php