Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Rocks

re: Rocks
BD — (archived)

Tom,

Th point Robert is trying to make is that most of the Viking team said Levin was nuts because he even suggested blue-green rocks on Mars. Why? Because NASA was convinced that Mars was completely orange-red, for rocks, soil, sky. Read Levin's paper on Viking color:

http://www.biospherics.com/mars/color/color.htm

Levin's LR instrument did nine soil tests with two Viking Landers and obtained results resembling metabolism from microbes in Earth soils.

http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie2/reprint106a.htm

It wasn't until 1997, that NASA's Pathfinder showed indications of other colors. They still don't have it right yet. Part of it is the failure of NASA to include a green filter to get true color images. Beagle 2 will have stereo color cameras with RGB. We will see what colors of Mars there are soon.

Check this link to the first color Mars Pathfinder image. It was take right off the JPL Monitor as it came in -- then suddenly the image was adjusted to show a uniform orange-red landscape:

http://www.sfgate.com/science/photos/1997/marspix/july05/picture_01.shtml

Also, this issue has not been completely resolved yet:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020408/mars.html

Barry D.

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