posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 05:20 AM
Valhall the color you see in the pictures is never in "true" color and the best approximations are generally redder than most. That one picture I
devoted a thread to I think is a close approximation, I honestly don't know because it didn't say and I've never been to Mars to be able to
compare. Viking's pictures revealed a bit more red surface but it was stated that sometimes they had too much red filter.
But either way, of course some white light is getting through, the atmosphere is not opaque to all but red, but the point is, that so much of it is
absorbed that there must be a significant loss in the energy that plants can absorb.
"But there are plants that require far less solar energy than the solar cells. There are plants that need almost no solar energy. Algaes, funguses,
etc. And that is exactly what is targeted in terraforming activities."
Algaes require too much water - lichen would be better? And fungi are anerobic if I'm not mistaken?
"In addition, I would offer that there are only two things that the dust in the atmosphere can do: forward scatter, or backscatter."
The dust is not 100% reflective, it absorbs light the same way your clothes do to make it the colors it is. Our atmosphere scatters light, breaking
it so that the blue is more visible but on Mars it has an actual physical obstruction much more similar to when our volcanos go off and put dust into
our atmosphere.
"It will NOT absorb, or we would be getting extremely low-light pics and I don't believe the solar cells would be working very well. There is
apparently plenty of light striking the surface for many types of low-solar-energy-requiring plants."
I don't agree so since your examples seem unviable, I'm not sure if lichen produce oxygen or carbon-dioxide.
And I don't see how you figure that the dust is not absorbing light, it does not scatter the light into the red spectrum it is reflecting that light
absorbing the other colors. Just as a red sweater does.
How much this changes the energy levels reaching the surface ... well I don't have figures on those.