Is this a picture of water on mars?

hmmm i suppose the camera used might explain it. But i still find it strange because nowhere else looks blue on that image. And if water was going to gather anywhere it would be at the bottom of a hill. But i guess i will shut up

reply to post by theflashor

I have but i still cant get my head around why it is blue.

Yes, I know. There is a large thread on this, discussing about the colors of Mars. I even created a program to approximate the colors of Mars using 5 or 6 filters.

The debate is still ongoing as far as I know.

However, there are other pictures that show what seem to be water but it's always static each time.

reply to post by XeonSky


lol no i dont if anything that backs up my argument. The image i posted the small part of it im refering to is in no way anyshade of sand i have seen before.

reply to post by theflashor


As deaf alien stated, it's a false color image.
If that was water, it wouldn't show up as blue anyway. Water is clear, and tends to be the color of the ground it runs over, as well as whatever minerals it dissolves.

It seems it could be water

What are these strange shapes on Mars? Defrosting sand dunes. As spring now dawns on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, dunes of sand near the pole, as pictured above, are beginning to thaw. The carbon dioxide and water ice actually sublime in the thin atmosphere directly to gas. Thinner regions of ice typically defrost first revealing sand whose darkness soaks in sunlight and accelerates the thaw. The process might even involve sandy jets exploding through the thinning ice. By summer, spots will expand to encompass the entire dunes. The Martian North Pole is ringed by many similar fields of barchan sand dunes, whose strange, smooth arcs are shaped by persistent Martian winds.

images.google.co.uk...://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0803/dunes2_hirise_big.jpg&imgrefurl=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080303.html& usg=__iaFR8GDcR0s4-sHVJr4FkQzqDxE=&h=1536&w=2048&sz=2217&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=Nf5A83ljqlCnPM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmars%2Bsand%2Bd unes%26hl%3Den%26um%3D1

Although that photo does look rather photoshopped

reply to post by theflashor


Yes ofcourse.

I am only stating that sand can appear as different colors.

Actually that picture above dont look like wind erotion lol it looks like rabbit holes or somthing of the like lol. Sorry im just saying what i think

apod.nasa.gov...
Actually why is there pure black parts on that picture i did say that looked photoshopped?

[edit on 22/5/2009 by theflashor]

As deaf alien stated, it's a false color image.
If that was water, it wouldn't show up as blue anyway. Water is clear, and tends to be the color of the ground it runs over, as well as whatever minerals it dissolves.

So why are the using false colour imaging??? you can tell alot from the colour of things.

Instead of asking the question: "Why is it blue?"

Ask the question: "Why is it not the SAME colour as the other sand?"


Was there water there before hand? Maybe..

Think outside the box, or the picture you are looking at!

Well thats what first pointed me in that direction, why was it a different colour to the rest of the image. Then because it was blue i made my assumption.

Assume nothing!!

I still stand and my conclusion of "Dirty Sand". How it became this colour i do not know.

reply to post by theflashor

So why are the using false colour imaging??? you can tell alot from the colour of things.

Yes, that's one of the questions we have debated a lot on ATS before. Seems like NASA scientists are not interested in true color pictures.

As it stands now, we only have 3 (or 5 or 6) filters to work with.

Back and white pictures provide h most contrast when studying images.
Which is what these pictures are intended for, not entertaining people.

When the pictures are received here on earth, they are ran through various color filters to get a approximate colored picture of the area.
Also, black and whites contain less data when transmitted.

a colour image can tell us much more than a black and white image.. and the images are not even black and white so what the hell are you going on about.

Where did the entertainment value come into this? - im talking informative!

[edit on 22/5/2009 by theflashor]

Originally posted by XeonSky
Assume nothing!!

I still stand and my conclusion of "Dirty Sand". How it became this colour i do not know.

Well to be fair your assuming its just sand! although you also cannot be totally sure.

half the rocks in that image are blue does that mean theyre made of water?

the reason they use those colour filters is becuase it brings out more detail in the terrain.

not water, but a really cool pic.look at the colors! Beautiful.

ps Anyway, water droplets have already been found on Mars (right?).

Originally posted by theflashor
Sorry if this has been posted before, but i have just been studying some pictures of mars

check this one out photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov...

Now forgive me if im wrong but zoom into the bottom of that hill on the top right side of the page. Is that water?

Not sure what it is , but it's definitely not "Dark dirt " .

So I guess we can go from there.

But yea, have seen this pic before and that was my first reaction. That it was water. Or some kind of vegitation specific to mars.

Originally posted by yeti101
half the rocks in that image are blue does that mean theyre made of water?

the reason they use those colour filters is becuase it brings out more detail in the terrain.

Exactly --

It's a "false color" picture. NASA assigns blue as a false color very often because it contrasts very nicely against the brown and yellow ochre colors of the rest of Mars. Thus objects of certain shades/colors that NASA assigns "blue" to are much easier to be seen for research purposes.

So:
1. The color is "false" (it's not really blue)
2. It's not level like water should be (it curves up a slope)
3. It looks exactly like wind-blown sand, except for the color -- but the color is "false" anyway.

Considering all of this, I would say it was just sand. If the false color "blue" was not assigned to that, we would not be having this discussion -- it would look like sand.

It should be pointed out that all of the raw pictures coming back from the rovers are Black and White -- the rovers are essentially color blind. The colors are always added after the picture is downloaded to NASA.

The colors are achieved by taking several pictures of the same scene using different filters. Each if these black-and-white pictures as seen through different filters will have different intensities of black-and white (or shades of gray). These different intensities are then deciphered by computers into colors -- the computer reads each intensity of the shade of gray and can assign a color to it. The colors can either be "approximate true color" or "false color". As I said, blue is often used (assigned to certain shades-of-gray intensities) as a false color by NASA to make certain objects "stand out" against the soil.

Your home digital camera is also "color blind" -- the colors you get are only "approxiated" by a the camera's computer (CMOS, CCD chip) based on intensities of shades of gray as seen through various filters when you take a picture.

(by the way, this picture has been around for over a year and has been discussed before)


[edit on 5/22/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]