Slashdot Mirror
Latest Mars Photos Show Frosty Landscapes, Ancient Lakebeds
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."
Why does /. never link to the original source?
http://www.uahirise.org/
"Meaningless"? Blown out of proportion? I don't think so.
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."
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!
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.
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.
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
"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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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