Latest Mars Photos Show Frosty Landscapes, Ancient Lakebeds

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Latest Mars Photos Show Frosty Landscapes, Ancient Lakebeds

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 23, 2010 @02:46AM from the wouldn't-wanna-live-there dept.

Phoghat writes "A new batch of images has been released by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissaince Orbiter and as usual they are stunning. In the first image, there is a lot going on! Numerous dust devil tracks have left criss cross marks. The second is an image of what could have been a once habitable lake. There are more, including a possible future landing site."

60 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

See you at the party Richter by snookerhog · 2010-12-23 02:53 · Score: 0

let the terraforming begin?
1. Re:See you at the party Richter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 02:56 · Score: 0
  
  If it means we can get women with three tits then I'm in!
2. Re:See you at the party Richter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:01 · Score: 0
  
  If it means we can get women with three tits then I'm in!
  Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five!
3. Re:See you at the party Richter by Phoghat · 2010-12-24 00:39 · Score: 1
  
  Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars!
  
  --
  Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Wow by PmanAce · 2010-12-23 03:03 · Score: -1, Offtopic

Amazing HiRISE pictures. Now they need to release those HiRISE pictures of that 3 boobed martian chick from Total Recall.

--
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
1. Re:Wow by CohibaVancouver · 2010-12-23 03:04 · Score: 0
  
  Get your ass to Mars...
2. Re:Wow by arth1 · 2010-12-23 03:23 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Amazing, indeed. Amazingly photoshopped, with more kohl and false colours than a Soho gal. I don't know about others, but I am more impressed when pictures haven't been exaggerated, so what I'm impressed with is what I see and not the artistry and what the publishers want us to see.
  As for "could have been a once habitable lake", that's a rather meaningless statement. The area behind your house could have been an ancient burial site too. Speculation with very little to go on isn't very fruitful, except causing confusion when "journalists" blow this out of proportions and rewrite it like if it were fact, and people start believing it.
3. Re:Wow by ferd_farkle · 2010-12-23 03:46 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  "“Holden crater has some of the best-exposed lake deposits and ancient megabreccia known on Mars,” said HiRISE’s principal investigator, professor Alfred McEwen of the UA’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. ”Both contain minerals that formed in the presence of water and mark potentially habitable environments. [...]“"
  "Meaningless"? Blown out of proportion? I don't think so.
4. Re:Wow by arth1 · 2010-12-23 03:51 · Score: 1
  
  What does "potentially" mean? It's a weasel word. Again, your back yard is "potentially" an ancient burial site.
  By all means, investigate whether it was or was not, but don't publicly launch speculation to fuel interest before you either know or know that you can't know. That's the scientific equivalent of karma whoring.
5. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:59 · Score: 0
  
  Meaningless?
  when it comes from a self adsorbed internet troll looking for his 30 seconds of fame... Then yes.
  When it comes from a team of scientists at a government scientific operation that knows a metric ton more about the subject than you do? Then no.
  Guess what, NASA knows a whole lot more than you and not only has at least 900X more experience in it than you do along with 90,000X more education in the subject... But I bet they dont make half cocked statements based on gut either.
  So I'm taking teir statement as plausible and yours as inane background noise from a bunch of nut-jobs that are delusional about their own knowledge and education.
6. Re:Wow by camperdave · 2010-12-23 04:00 · Score: 2
  
  I've been wondering lately what sort of discovery would we have to make to make travel to Mars a priority at NASA. I don't mean robotic probes. I mean a full fledged manned expedition. Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I don't see anything short of finding an artifact of an extraterrestrial culture making us want to get our ass to Mars.
  
  (Extraterrestrial: beyond Earth, not Extrasolar. I'm not saying aliens from another galaxy, but perhaps an ancient Martian civilization.)
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
7. Re:Wow by oldspewey · 2010-12-23 04:27 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Either an ancient alien artifact, or a few hundred billion barrels of crude under the sand ... either one has an equal chance of getting our asses to Mars.
  
  --
  If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
8. Re:Wow by arth1 · 2010-12-23 04:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Would this be the same NASA that just recently announced discovering arsenic based life?
  The same NASA that desperately needs funding, and must fight to survive in a publish or die world?
  Sorry for not taking everything NASA Mk II publishes at face value. Especially not when heavily photoshopped pictures are accompanied by weasel words like "could" and "potentially", but without a single theory.
9. Re:Wow by Nyeerrmm · 2010-12-23 04:41 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I don't think theres any likely discovery that will get us moving.
  Instead whats going to get us moving is getting it to the point that its cheaper. Hopefully with the albatross of the shuttle no longer around NASA's neck we'll create an infrastructure that makes it (relatively) easy to go anywhere in the solar system. Cheap transport to orbit, orbiting fuel depots and built-in-space spaceships that never enter the Earth's atmosphere -- sustainable exploration. Hopefully the administrations proposed NASA budget will get us to that point, even after congress got done with it. Only external geopolitics will up the NASA budget above $20B (in 2010 dollars) again, so if its going to happen in the mid-term future without hoping for a cold war, it has to be done this way.
10. Re:Wow by TapeCutter · 2010-12-23 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  Seems to me it's you who is blowing the caveat "could" way out of proportion.
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
11. Re:Wow by mopomi · 2010-12-23 05:03 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Time to feed the troll.
  1) These images are not photoshopped (at least not the ones on uahirise.org). If you knew anything about remote sensing, CCD sensors, image processing, or science, you'd know that.
  http://www.uahirise.org/pdf/color-products.pdf
  2) Press releases do absolutely nothing for scientists except get their work out to the public. In a "publish or die" world, press releases are absolutely worthless. In a "publish or die" world, peer-reviewed work is publishing.
  3) All scientists in a given field (and often across fields) compete with each other for funding, so making claims that are easily refutable (by real scientists, not worthless internet trolls like yourself) means you won't get funding in the future because a) your work is peer reviewed by your competitors, and b) your grant proposals are peer-reviewed by your competitors. If you're a shit scientist, your competitors will point it out to the funding and publishing agencies and your papers won't be published anymore and you won't get any more funding.
  4) Do a little research yourself before making such asinine claims about "weasel words" and "without a single theory." Scientists use words like "may" and "could" and "potentially" when they have good reason to believe it's possible, but also good reason NOT to state something with certainty.
  Here, I'll do it for you.
  scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Holden+crater+lake+deposits&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=801&as_sdtp=on
  scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Holden+crater+megabreccia&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=801&as_sdtp=on
12. Re:Wow by Chris+Tucker · 2010-12-23 05:06 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  "Amazingly photoshopped, with more kohl and false colours than a Soho gal. I don't know about others, but I am more impressed when pictures haven't been exaggerated"
  The use of color to indicate variances in terrain elevation is common.
  The use of false color to indicate areas of differing surface chemistry and elements is common in remote imaging.
  To equate either with Photoshopped imagery is to betray a level of ignorance that one should well be embarrassed to display in public.
  
  --
  Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
13. Re:Wow by arth1 · 2010-12-23 05:52 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  1) These images are not photoshopped (at least not the ones on uahirise.org). If you knew anything about remote sensing, CCD sensors, image processing, or science, you'd know that.
  http://www.uahirise.org/pdf/color-products.pdf [uahirise.org]
  Have you actually read that PDF?
  (My emphasis)
  
  "PSP_005000_1000_RGB.NOMAP.JP2 3-color image consisting of RED, BG, and synthetic blue images. The BG image has been warped to line up with the RED.NOMAP image. The BG (blue-green) bandpass primarily accepts green light. The synthetic blue image digital numbers (DNs) consist of the BG image DN multiplied by 2 minus 30% of the RED image DN for each pixel. This is not unique data, but provides a more
  appealing way to display the color variations present in just two bandpasses, RED and BG."
  "For the Extras products, each color band is individually stretched to maximize contrast, so the colors are enhanced differently for each image based on the color and brightness of each scene. Scenes with dark shadows and bright sunlit slopes or with both bright and dark materials are stretched less, so the colors are less enhanced than is the case over bland scenes."
  Whether one uses Photoshop or other software to enhance images to become more pleasing or effectful, it's generally called photoshopping.
  Mars may look rather dull compared to Earth, and there's not much light there. But I'd much rather see things as they are, and the IR imagery displayed separately (preferably as black/white, as is traditional as it doesn't give any false impressions that it's visible light). That would be much more impressing than artificial colour "enhancements" and contrast stretching individual colour bands to make the images appear more colourful.
  In many ways, exaggerating space images that are already impressive because they are from space to make more of an impact on the public isn't much different from photoshopping people to make their eyes bluer, lips redder, teeth whiter, and wrinkles less visible.
14. Re:Wow by arth1 · 2010-12-23 06:21 · Score: 2
  
  The use of color to indicate variances in terrain elevation is common.
  The use of false color to indicate areas of differing surface chemistry and elements is common in remote imaging.
  Whitening teeth, reddening lips and smoothing out wrinkles of celebrity pictures is also common.
  I'm interested in what Mars is like, not in how impressive pictures of Mars can appear after a session through lightroom-on-steroids.
  Perhaps especially because this may affect how our money is spent. If a team studying Mars provides more impressive pictures than one studying Mercury, and increases its chances of future funding by creating a public bias, that's just plain wrong, and may lead to an arms race where the best image enhancers win.
  Let's marvel over the raw data, and not the false boobs.
15. Re:Wow by Mindcontrolled · 2010-12-23 06:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No shit, data are processed? Did you pathetic little troll actually do anything remotely related to science once in your life, or do you think sleeping through CS101 makes you a scientist? And what the flaming fuck is with the mods rewarding this drivel with insightful mods?
  
  --
  Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
16. Re:Wow by mopomi · 2010-12-23 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  1) These images are not photoshopped (at least not the ones on uahirise.org). If you knew anything about remote sensing, CCD sensors, image processing, or science, you'd know that.
  http://www.uahirise.org/pdf/color-products.pdf [uahirise.org]
  Have you actually read that PDF?
  (My emphasis)
  
  "PSP_005000_1000_RGB.NOMAP.JP2 3-color image consisting of RED, BG, and synthetic blue images. The BG image has been warped to line up with the RED.NOMAP image. The BG (blue-green) bandpass primarily accepts green light. The synthetic blue image digital numbers (DNs) consist of the BG image DN multiplied by 2 minus 30% of the RED image DN for each pixel. This is not unique data, but provides a more
  appealing way to display the color variations present in just two bandpasses, RED and BG."
  "For the Extras products, each color band is individually stretched to maximize contrast, so the colors are enhanced differently for each image based on the color and brightness of each scene. Scenes with dark shadows and bright sunlit slopes or with both bright and dark materials are stretched less, so the colors are less enhanced than is the case over bland scenes."
  Whether one uses Photoshop or other software to enhance images to become more pleasing or effectful, it's generally called photoshopping.
  Mars may look rather dull compared to Earth, and there's not much light there. But I'd much rather see things as they are, and the IR imagery displayed separately (preferably as black/white, as is traditional as it doesn't give any false impressions that it's visible light). That would be much more impressing than artificial colour "enhancements" and contrast stretching individual colour bands to make the images appear more colourful.
  In many ways, exaggerating space images that are already impressive because they are from space to make more of an impact on the public isn't much different from photoshopping people to make their eyes bluer, lips redder, teeth whiter, and wrinkles less visible.
  You CANNOT "see things as they are" with the HiRISE images.
  1) Does your monitor display Infrared?
  2) Does your monitor display "red" with the same bandpass that the HiRISE detectors are sensitive to?
  3) Does your monitor display the bluegreen that HiRISE is sensitive to?
  4) Are your eyes sensitive, in the same way as the HiRISE detectors, to the same bandpasses as the HiRISE detectors?
  No.
  5) It simply isn't "traditional" to show IR or other non-visible wavelength data as a separate grayscale image. Take a look at Hubble images.
  6) The difference between photoshopping and processing these images is: a) there's documentation on exactly how it's done, and why, b) the "original--whatever that means" images are available to anyone who actually has an interest in the imagery rather than complaining about scientists.
  7) Mars doesn't look dull compared with Earth. The bandpasses were chosen for science. The public images are just that, to excite the public. If you want to do science, then go to the original source. If you want to look at pretty pictures, then look at the pretty pictures.
  What, precisely, would you like to see?
  Would you like to see the raw numbers that come out of the detectors? Those won't do you much good since you clearly don't know anything about Mars science or remote sensing. Some amount of the "signal" is actually generated by the instrument. In addition, some amount of the "signal" is due to heat generated by the spacecraft, other instruments, etc. If you would like to see the raw data, go here:
  http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EDR/PSP/ORB_001500_001599/PSP_001552_1410/
  Those raw data
17. Re:Wow by bws111 · 2010-12-23 06:52 · Score: 2
  
  The purpose of these pictures is to actually LEARN something about Mars. They are not 'my vacation on Mars' snapshots. Learning something means that the photos need to show details, even subtle ones. Details require contrast (in all photos, not just space pictures). Your choices for getting good contrast are either a) adjust the lighting, or b) adjust the image. Option A works great in a photo studio, or even outdoors with proper fill lights and reflectors. It is not an option at all in space. So that leaves option B, which is what they do.
  As for color: what is the 'real' color anyway? Turn off auto white-balance on your camera (after all, you wouldn't want to photoshop the picture), and take a picture of the same white piece of paper under three conditions: sunlight, incandescent light, and florescent light. Now look at the three pictures: one is white, one is yellow, and one is blue. The paper looks white to you under all three conditions, but different to the camera. Which is correct?
18. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  I've been wondering lately what sort of discovery would we have to make to make travel to Mars a priority at NASA.
  A Chinese Mars colony.
19. Re:Wow by citizenr · 2010-12-23 09:14 · Score: 2
  
  I've been wondering lately what sort of discovery would we have to make to make travel to Mars a priority at NASA. I don't mean robotic probes. I mean a full fledged manned expedition
  Derelict spaceship sticking out of Mars dunes. That would send a LOT of military money directly towards securing that find.
  
  --
  Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
20. Re:Wow by cduffy · 2010-12-23 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is that human eyes and minds aren't well-equipped for appreciating what they see on Mars.
  Just as someone who grows up in a uniracial environment might have trouble distinguishing faces of people with unfamiliar features, we don't appreciate Mars because we don't see it in an appropriate manner.
  Appropriate enhancement is a tool to convey information in a useful manner, not (just) marketing.
  (For a work of fiction providing a very different perspective on a similar problem, consider whether the highly figurative translations of alien behavior in Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky aided or harmed "accurate" human comprehension).
21. Re:Wow by Chris+Tucker · 2010-12-23 10:57 · Score: 1
  
  "I'm interested in what Mars is like, not in how impressive pictures of Mars can appear after a session through lightroom-on-steroids."
  To reiterate:
  "To equate either with Photoshopped imagery is to betray a level of ignorance that one should well be embarrassed to display in public."
  You just cannot seem to get away from the nose in the air attitude towards the use of color to convey information, can you?
  If you go to the University of Arizona site, you can see all these images in their original 256 greyscale "goodness". Oh, wait. These images have been enhanced as well. Messing with the contrast and brightness and what not. Horrors!
  Sucks to be you, doesn't it.
  How the very Moon itself must vex you, what with that garishly bright silvery white glare when it's full. Pray, do you stand out in the garden at night and shake your fist in impotent rage at the Moon, knowing that the Lunar surface is actually the color of old, Sun bleached asphalt? "It should be GRAY, GRAY dammit, not that false white colour! I shall write a letter to the paper about this damned outrage!"
  
  --
  Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
22. Re:Wow by geekoid · 2010-12-23 11:15 · Score: 1
  
  Congress sets NASA priorities.
  And yes, if they found clearly artificial structures congress would make it their priority to fund NASA as needed.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
23. Re:Wow by geekoid · 2010-12-23 11:22 · Score: 2
  
  If you were truly interested in MARS, you would take the time to stop loking like a fool and understand why picture NEED to be taken that way.
  This isn't smoothing out some wrinkles on an aging starlet. If you can't understand the difference at least realize you are ignorant and stop interrupting the adults at the table.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
24. Re:Wow by Mindcontrolled · 2010-12-23 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  It's the new hipsterism - "I only watch it in the original infrared".
  
  --
  Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
25. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 12:20 · Score: 0
  
  It's actually more like making graphs. Demographic data don't look like pie slices, but the information can be conveyed well that way. Same with these NASA photos. They take the data and accurately represent them visually.
26. Re:Wow by arth1 · 2010-12-23 13:19 · Score: 1
  
  You just cannot seem to get away from the nose in the air attitude towards the use of color to convey information, can you?
  Oh, I have no problem with blatantly false colour used to convey information. But when the extra information is modified to blend in with the image and look "natural", I have a big issue with it.
  Why? Because it (a) misleads the masses into believing it really looks that way (which can be seen from several posts here), and (b) reduces information, as you can't tell what is part of the visible spectrum and what's not.
  With blatantly false colours for the non-visible parts of the EM spectrum (or a second monochrome image), neither is a problem.
27. Re:Wow by ezratrumpet · 2010-12-23 15:27 · Score: 1
  
  Why do we think we HAVEN'T gone there already with uber secret missions?
28. Re:Wow by KeensMustard · 2010-12-23 23:30 · Score: 1
  
  I've been wondering lately what sort of discovery would we have to make to make travel to Mars a priority at NASA. I don't mean robotic probes. I mean a full fledged manned expedition.
  
  My suspicion would be some sort of mass conversion to something like Sharia Law. This would be the only way to explain the twin regressions we would have to undergo as a species for that event to take place - firstly, to regress to speaking/thinking of human space travel as manned space travel, and secondly, and more fundamentally, a regression in our technological outlook such that we imagine we lived 100 years ago - before the age of robotics. From an objective standpoint robots are so superior at space exploration comparative to humans that the only way we would send humans in place of robots would be if we felt compelled to do so by some as yet unimagined dogma.
  Really, in this age, even calling it a human space mission is anachronistic - like loading your horses into a truck and saying you are travelling by horse. Sure, once upon a time we rode on the horses back - just like once upon a time our electronics were so primitive we imagined scenarios where humans would be needed in space. That doesn't mean we still need the horse to travel, much less the symbolism of bringing the horse along merely for the benefit of arousing sentiment.
29. Re:Wow by Phoghat · 2010-12-24 00:44 · Score: 1
  
  Derelict spaceship sticking out of Mars dunes. That would send a LOT of military money directly towards securing that find.
  Yeah, like that's going to happen outside of a movie. Wait a minute, you've given me a story line!
  
  --
  Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Direct links? by mopomi · 2010-12-23 03:05 · Score: 4, Informative

Why does /. never link to the original source?
http://www.uahirise.org/
1. Re:Direct links? by hcs_$reboot · 2010-12-23 03:08 · Score: 2
  
  Ask Slashdot
  
  --
  Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
2. Re:Direct links? by Tr3vin · 2010-12-23 03:12 · Score: 1
  
  The editors only post what the users send in and the users only submit news articles they have read or blog posts they have made.
3. Re:Direct links? by Ismellpoop · 2010-12-23 03:16 · Score: 1, Offtopic
  
  Because half the article are day or two old http://www.fark.com/ news.
  Lately /. could just link to the Fark home page and be done with it.
4. Re:Direct links? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  Who do you think submits these stories? (mostly) Other people who write them.
  What do you think happens when Slashdot pisses off the other people posting these stories?
  They go away and Slashdot loses hits / possible revenue from story deals / a lot of content.
  Either way, all of those sound bad.
  And very rarely does that gap get filled with other people. It has happened on loads of other sites where a bunch of the original fanbase have left, the site is left is a cesspit of a mess. (4chan*, YTMND, Youtube*, Digg, Reddit, some of the larger user contributed sites that fell apart due to bad decisions at the top. [*both sites still slowly dying with more and more crap, although Youtube is slightly better this year since they are beginning to get their act together... a bit])
  Not all of these were because of the same problem, admittedly, but it will be the result if the story posting bunch leave from here all at once.
5. Re:Direct links? by countertrolling · 2010-12-23 03:25 · Score: 2
  
  It's an advertising thing
  
  --
  For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
6. Re:Direct links? by GIL_Dude · 2010-12-23 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  Not 100% true. I've had only one article on the front page so I certainly can't speak for all. However the link I provided in my submission was to Engadget. The link that was published was to some site in the UK. They also added / changed some sentences that garbled the intent so much that it became confusing. I WISH they would only publish what the user submitted (maybe correcting a typo or two).
7. Re:Direct links? by salesgeek · 2010-12-23 05:06 · Score: 1
  
  This.
  
  --
  -- $G
could have been a once habitable lake by Ismellpoop · 2010-12-23 03:10 · Score: 1

Must have found a fishing pole by the dock.
1. Re:could have been a once habitable lake by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:57 · Score: 0
  
  The lake was filled with frosty piss.
Roads! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:16 · Score: 0

The border of the crater certainly looks like a paved road.
The editors are very, very stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:16 · Score: 1

and lazy. You'd think the role of an "editor" would be to optimize the user-submitted content. You'd think they'd check the spelling, make sure the links worked and pointed to useful stuff, check for duplicates, READ THE FUCKING SUBMISSION, etc. But they don't. They just wipe the drool off their chins and randomly mash "ACCEPT" to a few submissions each day.
Slashdot is a comedy.
1. Re:The editors are very, very stupid by arth1 · 2010-12-23 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but it's our comedy.
The Red Planet by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:23 · Score: 0

A planet that once was, or a planet that could have been? For sure, it's a planet that is not...
1. Re:The Red Planet by arth1 · 2010-12-23 03:48 · Score: 1
  
  One that couldn't have been. Too tiny and too far from the sun.
  Yet, with our sister planet too harsh for us, and anything farther away being even more inhospitable, it's the only rockball we have for fueling our dreams of visiting at present. So we gaiamorphise Mars, and pretend it's more Earth-like than it is.
2. Re:The Red Planet by DigiShaman · 2010-12-23 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  I think the AC just wrote a poem.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
3. Re:The Red Planet by JumpDrive · 2010-12-23 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  I think it was more along the first lines of a book.
  
  The lake was filled with frosty piss, surrounded by the martian mountain terrain.
  We continued to stumble searching for water despite the obnoxius uric fumes which were permeating our suits.
4. Re:The Red Planet by MichaelSmith · 2010-12-23 18:44 · Score: 1
  
  Too tiny and too far from the sun.
  Yet, with our sister planet too harsh for us, and anything farther away being even more inhospitable, it's the only rockball we have for fueling our dreams of visiting at present. So we gaiamorphise Mars, and pretend it's more Earth-like than it is.
  Its easy. Just move all that carbon dioxide from Venus to Mars. Problem solved.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
5. Re:The Red Planet by arth1 · 2010-12-24 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  Its easy. Just move all that carbon dioxide from Venus to Mars. Problem solved.
  Dangerous -- you might introduce venerean diseases.
  Anyhow, the gravity of Mars may be too low to hold an atmosphere for long. And the tiny amount of sunlight that hits Mars may still not be enough to keep it warm either.
  Area presented to the sun:
  Earth: 127800000 km^2
  Mars: 36250000 km^2
  If factoring in that the sunlight being about 40% as strong at the distance Mars is from the sun compared to Earth, Mars gets less than a ninth of the energy from the sun that Earth does.
  But then again, with a name like Michael Smith, you have probably grokked this a long time ago.
6. Re:The Red Planet by MichaelSmith · 2010-12-24 10:51 · Score: 1
  
  Its easy. Just move all that carbon dioxide from Venus to Mars. Problem solved.
  Dangerous -- you might introduce venerean diseases.
  Originating on Titan, no doubt.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
Cross cross? by socsoc · 2010-12-23 03:24 · Score: 1

Jump, Jump!
Enough free water for frost? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 03:32 · Score: 0

Or does "Frosty Landscapes" have a different meaning?
1. Re:Enough free water for frost? by Dakman · 2010-12-23 03:46 · Score: 2
  
  From the article: "HiRISE scientists say the frost is likely water frost instead of of CO2 frost because temperatures at this latitude probably do not get cold enough for carbon dioxide to condense."
False Colors? by Powerbear · 2010-12-23 04:52 · Score: 1

NASA has a habit of making things looks a lot more dramatic than they look in real life
War is more lucrative by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-23 07:43 · Score: 0

Gee, just think of the space program we could have if we weren't spending $700 million a DAY on wars. Of course that's a silly idea. People who invest in wars want a sure thing and space is too risky, too speculative. So even if you could wave a wand and stop the wars, the investors wouldn't spend it on space travel most likely. But it was a thought. Back to reality.
Other Mars Media - Movies by Tablizer · 2010-12-23 14:04 · Score: 1

Space.com has some fairly-new cool time-lapse movies of a Martian sunset and eclipse:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars-rover-opportunity-sunset-movie-101223.html
There seems to be some camera or processing artifacts that cause faint ovals, however. Some small-delta smoothing algorithms could perhaps fix them up.

--
Table-ized A.I.