SCI/TECH: What Color Is Mars, Really?

Here is another set of pics that you can compare. In the first one note the color of the canopy ramp and then compare it to the second one. Also note the white sheathing on the cable in the second one.

origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov...

origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov...

That's also convincing evidence...

For ease of comparison, here are the images Valhall found for us:

It's worth pointing out that the lattice pattern on the canopy, when seen in the egress test (earth-bound) had a green hue.

so did the rectangular patch that can be seen in the Mars pic...

In the first posted panorama pic, the sheet looks white and grey..

I don't know. But just to throw it out there, NASA has in the past withheld various images and ,to their definition, altered other images in the past which later on have found to hold so odd anomoles which at the time were best off hidden for their PR peoples sanity. Look at how many variations and alterations of the Mars Face that have been released over the years to the public, changes everytime the do. I figure it'll be the same with these.

NASA has know since Viking that there is life on Mars.

It has simply been covered up. The 'Life' detecting experiments were positive. It was just pooh-poohed everywhere, and left to be forgotten.
_____________________________________________
Reprinted from:
Proceedings of Spie, SPIE-The International Society for Optical Engineering,
"Instruments, Methods, and Missions for the Investigation of Extraterrestrial Microorganisms.
29 July-1 August 1997, San Diego, California

The Viking Labeled Release Experiment and Life on Mars

Gilbert V. Levin*
Biospherics Incorporated

SNIP

3. CONCLUSION


Many hypotheses have been advanced and tested in attempts to account for the well-characterized activity detected in the surface material of Mars by the LR experiment. As shown above, these hypotheses have themselves been found wanting. The demonstrated success of the LR and the exquisite sensitivity with which it has detected microorganisms during its extensive test program with its record of no false positives can no longer be denied. No non-biological approach published, or known to the author, has duplicated the LR Mars data. Some laboratory experiments have produced positive responses, but the detailed thermal sensitivity exhibited by the variety of controls conducted on Mars has remained elusive in all such tests compatible with martian conditions. On the other hand, a combination of known properties of microorganisms, perhaps even those possessed by single species, could reproduce all aspects of the LR data. The biological interpretation of the Mars LR results is left standing alone. Recent discoveries of life forms thriving in extraordinarily severe environments on Earth strongly indicate that any alien organisms arriving on Mars might well and widely adapt to their new home. Application of the scientific principle leads to a conclusion: the Viking LR experiment detected living microorganisms in the soil of Mars.

www.biospherics.com...

[Edited on 11-1-2004 by ArchAngel]

[Edited on 11-1-2004 by ArchAngel]

Some interesting Photoshop mucking about. I used the Replace Color tool in Photoshop to find all of the pixels in the Mars surface (in the panorama shot) which are exactly the same color as the modified now-beige green reference swatch on the sundial. I didn't spend the time to pick every single pixed in the area defined by the color swatch, but an interesting enough result can be seen.

Pay attention!

Getting back to the original topic of this thread. I emailed Dr. Jim Bell, Assoc. Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University. Who is also the Pancam Payload Element Lead for the Athena Science Team.

Dr. Bell has returned my email (for which I am extremely grateful, as I'm sure he is incredibly busy at present). Explaining what causes this quirk we see in the processed panorama image.

The contents of the email response are below:

Thanks for writing. The answer is that the color chips on the sundial have different colors in the near-infrared range of Pancam filters. For example, the blue chip is dark near 600 nm, where humans see red light, but is especially bright at 750 nm, which is used as "red" for many Pancam images. So it appears pink in RGB composites. We chose the pigments for the chips on purpose this way, so they could provide different patterns of brightnesses regardless of which filters we used. The details of the colors of the pigments are published in a paper I wrote in the December issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Planets), in case you want more details...


All of us tired folks on the team are really happy that so many people around the world are following the mission and sending their support and encouragement...


Thanks,


Jim Bell
Cornell U.

As far as the Journal of Geophysical Research (Planets). It seems you have to be a member to gain access to them from the AGU website. Perhaps a member who is or has access to a university library can look it up for further information.

Or maybe they are available elsewhere online and I'm just unable to find it.

I believe the paper referred to is this one:
www.agu.org...
Mars Exploration Rover Engineering Cameras

Or perhaps
www.agu.org...
Athena Mars rover science investigation

But at least we can put the paranoid theories back in the closet for now.

I take this to mean that the panorama image is not a true color image.

Will we see true color images where blue is blue, and green is green?

I keep looking at this thread and I keep thinking that it looks very familiar somehow?

ah i was just going to make a comment about the cameras using an infra-red filter. This does greatly alter the colour of images. You can even buy infra-red film for your camera. Just go on google and type "infrared photography" i'm sure you'll find lots of interesting B&W and colour photos. Green leaves on trees will look like a pinkish red.

Also note. When NASA gets the photos from the landers, they dont come back as coloured photos. Just B&W, so they have some special program that will analize the photos to colourize them as close as they can get it. (i think that's how it works)

Mars does have a blue sky. It's just that Mars has tons of huge dust storms that cause a lot of dust to fly into the air, thus making it that peach pink kinda colour. i'm sure when the dust settles it becomes more blue.

William One Sac: About that link you posted. If i got what the guy was trying to say. He really doesn't know what the hell he's doing. From what i could tell he thinks using the "magic wand" tool shows what has been copied and pasted into the photo, which is completely false. It just selects colour ranges that are near to what you originaly clicked on. For example, clicking on an dark brown rock in an image, that has a whole bunch of similar rocks with the magic wand, will select all the dark brown rocks more or less.

i think its a fake image.

Rather an ignorant comment there Russian, if it was a mock-up image why wouldn't NASA just make the sundial look the correct colours?

That's a very excelent point Kano. Didn't think about that. If they were going to fake the photos, it would have been soo easy to do just put the proper colours on the sundial. Anyone who has a bit of experiance in Photoshop could do it in no time.

Both of those images were taken on earth, the red-lit one is from the imitation Mars environment in the JPL In-Situ Instrument Laboratory. The plain-colour one appears to be from an early test of the base design for the Rover.

Out of Gas

This image shows the airbags in deflated position at the JPL In-Situ Instrument Laboratory, where engineers did some tests on the airbags to ensure a safe landing on Mars.

Image credit: NASA/JPL

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

[Edited on 12-1-2004 by Kano]

Personally,I do not ascribe to the hoax theory,however to be fair,and because this is a conspiracy site,I will outline one hoax scenario that is at least in part plausable.

Beagle 2 had already lost contact without sending back any message.Spirit might have suffered the same fate and a quick decision was taken to hoax.A duplicate rover took panoramic shots of a desert area in the US(a military base) and the colour was shifted to eliminate blue and green from the shots to give an image that the public expected.
The panoramic view is not 360 degrees(the landscape doesn't match at either end) and by looking at the rock shadows it appears to be much less than 180 and nearer 90 degrees(unless the time to readjust for each shot has distorted the shadow graduation).
Now as I said I do not believe it but simple oversight could explain why the calibrator has not been changed or the technical difficulty in producing the images as perceived as live downloads.

My own view is there must be a problem with retaining the colour calibration when moving(oversensitivity).The only interesting and genuine question is the scientific on raised by the title of this thread.What colour is Mars,Really?

I do not think it's ignorant to raise the question of elaborate hoax though.
The green pixels shown on the image William has posted are probably just natural spectrum prism effect exagerated by the pixel size(natural light contains all colours and reflecting of off quartz would show some green.are the green pixels on opposite sides to the shadows?) but another explanation is simply green rocks/minerals.Not emeralds(though that would be nice) copper oxidisation,some types of marble.

If the green was better defined and was shown to be plantlife then I think the hoax theory actually gains credibility.There is no reason to hide terraforming(as it would be popular anyway apart from a few cosmic enviromentalists who believe the solar system should be a "international park")and there is no reason to hide indigenous plantlife(It would be Kudos to anyone involved in finding it)

OK,the green specks do appear to be in full sunlight opposite to shadows.One way to test to find out if it could be an exagerated green pixel from,quartz,crystal,moisture,or natural glass would be to tone right down the green in the picture and alternately exagerate the blue and yellow(either side of green in the spectrum)if blue or yellow specks appear in the same places then you have your answer.If not then,of course,it prove nothing.

Originally posted by Kano
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Both of those images were taken on earth, the red-lit one is from the imitation Mars environment in the JPL In-Situ Instrument Laboratory. The plain-colour one appears to be from an early test of the base design for the Rover.

Out of Gas


This image shows the airbags in deflated position at the JPL In-Situ Instrument Laboratory, where engineers did some tests on the airbags to ensure a safe landing on Mars.

Image credit: NASA/JPL

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

[Edited on 12-1-2004 by Kano]

Kano, Thanks for correcting this. My bad.

P.S. Concerning some one with library access who look into this for us, I believe your man would be OIMD.