Mars...with blue skies....

[kalian]

http://mars-news.de/color/blue.html

Fascinating article about how apparently JPL is "coloring in" the
images being sent back back the rovers. The question now is: WHY
don't the goons over at JPL NOT want us to see blue skies on Mars...?
:shrug:

[sasquatch]

1. TINFOILHAT TIME!!!

They don't want us to know that Mars is potentialy inhabital:tinfoilhat:

[brainshrub]

2. Waaaait a sec...

Is this article saying that the Martian skies are blue???

[enki23]

3. load of crap

the guy is assuming the existance of "water ice" in the pictures, and color correcting to make it "white." i suppose this means there's a gigantic astronomer conspiracy to keep people ignorant of the "fact" that there's water, including clouds of water vapor, all over on mars.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pmbryant]

5. Astronomers are conspiratorial sorts ;-)

I'm not too familiar with the details of this supposed conspiracy, but from what little I've read on sites like this, the ones who are claiming the conspiracy seem to have a tendency to think that pictures that "look normal" are the right ones.

But Mars is a completely different planet, on which none of us have ever been, so we have little clue what "normal" means there. And using Earth-based ideas of normal would appear to be biasing the analysis.

--Peter

[Emperor_Norton_II]

6. I've got your conspiracy right here.

http://www.geocities.com/bradguth/

The Mgt makes no claim to responsibility for brain breakage.

[brainshrub]

15. Why do crazy people write so much? (nt)

[Emperor_Norton_II]

16. Because if they didn't, the rest of us would die from boredom -nt-

[gate of the sun]

7. I've heard this before

curious I don't see why they would try to hide it, after all even if the skies were blue it wouldn't be like we could just move on over there if we wanted to. I can't figure out why they would try to hide it....unless the remains of an ancient civilization are there and somehow they think that might shake things up to much if we knew that. I don't know.

[Buzz Clik]

8. The official word about the coloring...

is that they are still working on the algorithms to perfect the color. I watched a program this weekend with dynamite interviews, simulations, lab demos of the rover manipulations, etc. As they were discussing the panoramic pictures, the discussion turned briefly to color. They warned the viewers that the current colors were just a guess -- they were still calibrating.

[Cannikin]

11. They launched without calibrating the color on the camera?

Thats BS and here's why....anyone in the printing or photo biz wanna jump in here, feel free.

But there is a calibration key mounted on the rover. You can see it in one of the photos. That is the standard they go by. Whats the problem with getting the correct tone?

[Buzz Clik]

13. I quoted what was said.

If you take issue with it, don't argue with me. Send your inquiries directly to NASA.

[Sequoia]

9. The true reason for Bush's Moon/Mars

is so we can get a military base before everyone else and have nukes to fire on those uppity 3rd world nations. And France, and Russia, and China too. He ain't fooling us. It's the "we were here first so the moon is ours, and so is Mars."

[Emperor_Norton_II]

10. I'd just like to state for the record

That this is the

DUMBEST

thing I have ever heard repeated on Democratic Undrground.

Let's get one thing straight: putting nukes on the moon is about as useful as burying them. Likewise, putting nukes on Mars is akin to not having nukes at all. Okay? Are we clear?

[Cannikin]

12. I see THREE calibration scales mounted on the lander...no reason why color

should be off.

[pmbryant]

14. It doesn't just happen automatically

As someone who has done a lot of image processing in the past, I know that it takes a non-trivial amount of time to actually do calibrations such as this. With all the other things going on the first days after the landing, it seems highly likely to me that this was not a top priority.

--Peter

[DeepThinkingDuck]

17. NASA just takes liberties sometimes

This is a minor grief with quite a few astronomers, when NASA gets pictures back from its probes it goes wild with the colouring. One time they just forgot to colour the sky for one of the Venus probes, so it stayed black.