Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

Rxke · 2004-01-05 05:57:41

I've read that, sorry to having ignored it in all the excitement...

Think it's too early to tell, lores picts are typically showing this -what people in the CGI industry call 'banding' These picts are presumably 8bits greyscale, giving you only 256 'steps' of grey, and subtle transitions in greyscale etc tend to 'break down' in horizontal bands...

Wait for the IR, too, could be impressive

BTW, i don't think i see that layer in the higer res pictures... Not sure what you mean... You mean that transition above the horizon?
Then it looks like an digital artefact, or rather light reflecting off the upper layer of the rim, it's quite near the sun....

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-05 07:13:25

Yeah, sorry Rex. I meant to respond to your comments on this but got 'swept away' by other things in all the excitement!
I did notice what you're referring to but I'm putting it down to pixel problems, at least for the moment.

I don't know if you've ever visited the Enterprise Mission site but those people have built virtually a whole career out of pixel mirages! :laugh: (Mind you, I still scratch my beard over that hominid/leonine Face on the plains of Cydonia ... )
Anyhow, I think we need to be circumspect about reading too much detail into relatively poor-resolution digitalised images. As a matter of fact, I had a few heated words with a guy called Tripp McCann over what I perceived to be absolutely incredible fantasies derived from over-enhanced digital pictures.
But that's another story and I certainly don't mean to try to categorise you with either The Enterprise Mission or Tripp McCann.

For all I know, that hazy line above the horizon may actually be the top of the martian troposphere, which is what I assume you're implying. But for now I'm thinking digital artifact.

rgcarnes · 2004-01-06 22:23:53

Whether the bands visible above the horizon features are actually there or just image features from the camera system is the question. I still see subtle light bands above the raised features at the horizon in the first high resolution release.

Such a layer possibly enriched in water vapor would explain the higher than expected temperatures being experienced by the probe.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-07 16:51:23

Perhaps.

dickbill · 2004-01-07 17:05:25

In the new hires pictures I don't see any layer in the atmosphere but the scientists at JPL were actually more puzzled by the kind of "mud crust" revealed by the airbags retraction.
Someone suggested a high salt content in that crust, that make sense if Gusev is an evaporated lakebed.

rgcarnes · 2004-01-07 22:37:29

Since I brought this up, I recently saw the light boundary on the Real Video streamed simulation video, so obviously the initially tantalizing hints in the low resolution views can be ascribed to the electronic image processes.

It is still something to be looked for especially as the mast is raised to it's full height, and those same bumps on the horizon are viewed repeatedly.

If it exists, such layering of the near surface atmosphere would be a variable phenomenon, dependent on energy available at the surface at any given time.

I can accept it not being there at all, or it not being detectable with the instruments available. It's visible presence would be very interesting, and more important than it's being there and not being detectable.

rgcarnes · 2004-01-07 23:42:47

A further question--Does anyone have lead on how much and what type of processing the current high resolution image has undergone? Such things as averaging, smoothing, contrast enhancement, and so forth can add or reduce the information contained significantly.

There is some good information on the Malin (MSSS.com) site's treatment of the Mars Global Surveyor/Mars Orbital Camera images.

Is there any comparable information for the Spirit and Opportunity images, yet?

dickbill · 2004-01-08 17:13:51

A further question--Does anyone have lead on how much and what type of processing the current high resolution image has undergone?

they talk about 'compression', does spirit send jpg format ?

and obviously color correction, but here i have mixed feelings: does the process correct for the pink light diffused by the sky and NASA displays a picture "as if" lighted by a white light ? in such a case, the corrected colors are to compensate for that pinkish light.
But I want to see the real colors that I would see on MArs, even if the color balance is twisted because of the pink light, like the pre-corrected picture released today, very redish, I admit it, but nice.

Tholzel · 2006-04-02 18:59:35

""Liquid water and life on Mars
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie2/spie98.htm""

This paper Almir noted is very interesting. But it is dated 1998. Has anything further been one to confirm of deny the likelihood of micron-thin layers of liquid water on Mars?

Tholzel · 2006-04-02 19:09:06

Could such a lake persist on the surface, alternately freezing and thawing, with surface evaporation being replaced by underground seepage of water into the lake basin?
It could. NASA used to claim it was impossible. Now they have had to change their tune.
Or maybe they knew it all along, but this is just another small step in the conditioning process we are being put through.

The conspiracy mentality needs to make up its mind. First it is a NASA conspiracy to push for the possibility of water at every opportunity (this was the current state of affairs) to justify a manned mission; now, with the above claim, it is just the opposite. Reminds me of the Jewish mother, seeing her son come down the stairs wearing one of the two new neckties she gave him for his birthday. "What?" she exclaimed. "You didn't like the other one?"

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#51 2004-01-05 05:57:41

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#52 2004-01-05 07:13:25

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#53 2004-01-06 22:23:53

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#54 2004-01-07 16:51:23

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#55 2004-01-07 17:05:25

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#56 2004-01-07 22:37:29

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#57 2004-01-07 23:42:47

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#58 2004-01-08 17:13:51

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#59 2006-04-02 18:59:35

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

#60 2006-04-02 19:09:06

Re: Lakes on Mars today?! - What could they be?

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