Many spots of clouds on Mars, Mars at Ls 66 degrees (June 2006) Options

[RNeuhaus]

Most martian visibles clouds only hovers at high altitude. These are found around Olympus, Tharsis mountains, Alba Patera, above the Margaritifer Terra, Meridian Planum and most of South polar region: Planum Australe.

http://www.marstoday.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20843

Rodolfo

[MarsIsImportant]

Quoted directly from the second paragraph of the ESA article:

"Mars is not entirely a haven for Sun worshippers. Clouds of water ice particles do occur, for example on the flanks of the giant Martian volcanoes. "

This is before they get into the details of the story.

I hate to be put in the position of defending them, but the critics here are going too far. The ESA does acknowledge previous evidence of clouds. They have acknowledged other people's work related to the subject. What they have pointing out is that these particular clouds were found near the equator in an area where clouds of this type should not be expected. I think people have misinterpreted it as if they stated it was a unique discovery on Mars as a whole. My quote clearly shows that they did not say that.

Yet, They did not go out of their way to give specific references. When something is generally considered to be the norm in a particular field of study, specific references are generally not needed. Everybody knows that clouds have been seen on Mars many times before. That is kind of the point of not making the specific references. Perhaps they should have been more clear.

I didn't interpret the article as apparently many others did. Perhaps it did gloss over a few important points. But it certainly did not ignore them as some indicate.

[tedstryk]

In reality, the criticism is not at all over the top. Equatorial clouds on Mars, but have been routinely known and photographed from the ground since the early twentieth century. For example there are images depicting them in E. C. Slipher's Photographic Survey of the Brighter Planets. Carbon Dioxide clouds, not just water ice clouds, and certainly not just topography related clouds, have been studied extensively by previous spacecraft.