Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar lead the charge in proclaiming the importance of Cydonia to the public. Image of the Cydonia region taken by the Viking 1 orbiter. But these were as things of yesteryear compared to the walls upon which we gazed.” Without revealing the ending, it should be noted that the archaeologists do not fare well when they pass within these ancient walls. As the archaeologists approached the tumbled monoliths, the story’s narrator proclaims “I have seen the hoary, sky-confronting walls of Machu Picchu amid the desolate Andes and the frozen, giant-builded battlements of Uogam on the glacial tundras of the nightward hemisphere of Venus. Martian ruins took on a decidedly more sinister appearance in, noted Weird Tales author, Clark Ashton Smith’s 1932 story “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis,” which tells the story of human archaeologists visiting an ancient Martian city. The theme of ancient ruins on Mars continued to echo as Burroughs’ hero regularly found himself in long abandoned cities. Carter encountered a Martian landscape filled with fantastical cities and alien races. Most successful were Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories about the adventures of John Carter, a Civil War veteran who magically found himself on the surface of Mars. ![]() These slaves related a great secret to their liberators, when visiting Earth the Martians had built the Great Pyramid of Egypt along with the Sphinx.Īs the era of Pulp Fiction boomed, stories of the inhabitants of Mars abounded. During the assault on Mars, the invaders encountered an encampment of human slaves whose ancestors had been captured in a Martian raid on Earth 9,000 years earlier. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” (which was plagiarized by Serviss in his own book “Fighters from Mars”). Serviss told of a human expedition to the Red Planet that was sent as a counter strike against the Martian invaders depicted in H.G. In an 1898 science fiction novel, “Edison’s Conquest of Mars,” author Garrett P. Other, previous MOC data and captioned releases regarding Cydonia landforms can be seen by visiting and the MOC Gallery.As telescopes continued to improve, the Martian canals evaporated as quickly as the water they were meant to contain, but Mars’ association with fantastical archaeology was only beginning. In the future, the MOC team hopes-depending upon whether the spacecraft flies over this area again before the end of the mission-to fill the remaining gap and obtain some 1.5 m/pixel images of the landform, based on the many public suggestions that have been received. In recent weeks, the MOC team has received numerous requests through the Mars Orbiter Camera Target Request Site to obtain pictures of the "D&M Pyramid." The images shown here were acquired before the public target suggestion effort began in August 2003, but they have not yet been archived with the NASA Planetary Data System. The picture on the right shows the location of the two MOC images as black outlines the THEMIS image not only covers the gap between the two MOC images, it also fills out the lower left and upper right corners. ![]() The mosaic is 8 km by 8 km (5 mi by 5 mi) across and each of the three images is illuminated from the lower left. The mosaic was created from two MOC images obtained in June (R06-00469) and July (R07-00422) of 2003 and one THEMIS VIS image acquired in 2002 (V01024003). A few outcroppings of layers in this ancient bedrock can be seen in the mosaic of the pyramid-like landform shown here much of the landform is covered with eroded mantling material that was deposited long after this highlands remnant became an isolated feature in Cydonia. Each block, whether shaped like a face, a pyramid, or simply a mesa, massif, or knob, is a remnant of the bedrock of northeastern Arabia that was left behind as erosion slowly degraded the terrain along this zone between the highlands and the lowlands. The mosaics highlight a Cydonia landform popularly known as the "D&M Pyramid." It is located near 40.7°N, 9.6°W.Īlthough it is not really shaped like a pyramid, the Cydonia landform is one of thousands of massifs, buttes, mesas, knobs, and blocks that mark the transition from the far northwestern Arabia Terra cratered highlands down to the northeastern Acidalia Planitia lowlands. The two pictures (one annotated, the other not) are mosaics of two images from MGS MOC and one from the Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System visible camera (THEMIS VIS). Images of the Cydonia region of Mars continue to be popular among visitors to the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) web site.
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