Nasa accused of painting Mars red

Telegraph ^ | 29 Jan 2004 | Robert Uhlig

[demlosers]

The American space agency Nasa has been accused of doctoring its pictures of Mars to make the Martian surface conform to our impression of the famously red planet.

Nasa has been accused of digitally "tweaking" drab brown scenery to make it redder. It has even been suggested that Nasa removed green patches to hide evidence of life.

The theories gained credence after Nasa told New Scientist that "getting the colours right is a surprisingly difficult and subjective job", the magazine reports today.

Most of the pictures have been taken through green, blue and infra-red filters - instead of green, blue and standard red filters, which would have produced more accurate colours.

Dr Jim Bell, who worked with Nasa on the Mars rovers' cameras, said infrared filters were used because they helped geologists to distinguish rock types.

In reality, Mars appears red largely because of the dust in its atmosphere.

[demlosers]

Hmmmm?

[pabianice]

The second shooter on the grassy knoll did it...

[secret garden]

Hmmm, sounds conspiratorial to me. Are you sure you're not at NASA? ;)

[smith288]

Out of curiosity, what purpose does it serve to supress greenery on Mars?

[EggsAckley]

Tin foil hat in hand..............

[BigSkyFreeper]

Damn Photo Shop! heh

[anniegetyourgun]

It's all photo-shopped, I tell ya'.....

[DeepDish]

With a thread title like this I wonder how long it will be before some wag posts a picture cut from a Clint Eastwood movie. The one where he paints the town red. I forget the title. (:

[cynicom]

Better have the dems investigate.

[hopespringseternal]

One of the famous Viking pictures had a blue sky for years. It wasn't accurate, but it did look natural.

[theDentist]

And there's no doubt that they completely edited out the black helicopters that you cannot see. That's how we know they 're there!

[BigSkyFreeper]

I know where the photo was taken! Casa Grande, AZ! Or maybe Odessa, TX.

[JoJo Gunn]

That question came up here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1062491/posts

For my part, no matter what they say, it makes sense to me to calibrate the camera(s) with standard gray scale and colors.

[js1138]

No Hmmmmm needed here. The purpose of the mission is to gather data, not to produce pretty pictures. The analysis of the Martian surface will be done by computer analysis, not by subjectively looking at images.

I am a little surprised that the filters haven't been mentioned previously on these threads, but it makes sense. What they are getting is a much broader range of data. If the images released to the public are not exactly what would be seen by a human on Mars -- well that's true regardless of how you aquire the images.

[evets]

"Faster than you'll ever live to be."

[N. Theknow]

High Plains Drifter = Mars Plain Rover

[Dog]

Hmmmmm I think NASA "sexed up" the photos.......someone call Andrew Gilligan.

[EggsAckley]

Actually, it's worse than we think. The rover is NOT on Mars, it's in Death Valley, right here on earth.

And did you hear that Bush caused the earthquake in Bam? AND he started the So. Ca wildfires.

Oh, I could go on and on..................~</;o)

[_Jim]

Nasa has been accused of digitally "tweaking" - Telegraph.co.uk

What?

Are some of the Brits sour that their Beagle burrowed into the Martian planet (robbing them of the pleasure of diddling Martian images) and ours successfully 'landed as planned'?

Well, tough toe-nails or, may I say, tough retro-rockets Brits ...

[sarasota]

Bill Mahr said (on Larry King) that it was just like the terrain from L.A. to Las Vegas.