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

[climber]

More about clouds, shadows and clouds composition : http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0801/16marsclouds/

[djellison]

This all seems like ESA 'discovering' something that we already knew, again. (H2O ice at the poles for example). We've seen clouds, no astronaut on mars would be suprised by the, we saw them with MPF, MERA and MERB - not to mention from Earth ground obs, Hubble, and orbit around Mars.

Doug

[ustrax]

This all seems like ESA 'discovering' something that we already knew, again.

They are not saying that they have 'discovered' anything new Doug...
“This is the first time that carbon dioxide ice clouds on Mars have been imaged and identified from above...”
or...
"“Previously, we had to rely on indirect information – for example, from the SPICAM instrument on board Mars Express - to find out what the clouds are made of. However, it is very difficult to separate the signals coming from the clouds, the atmosphere and the surface.”
or even...
"Even more surprising is the fact that the CO2 ice clouds are made of quite large particles - more than a micron (one thousandth of a millimetre) across"...how would you get this data from MPF, MERs or other present orbiters if not with OMEGA onboard MEx?...
Better read the whole release...

[djellison]

"Until now, Mars has generally been regarded as a desert world, where a visiting astronaut would be surprised to see clouds scudding across the orange sky"

THAT - is an outright lie. You can't argue it any other way. It's utterly utterly wrong, inexcusable and totally unacceptable. They've written the press piece to make it sound like they've discovered some sort of new phenomenon - and they've have not. They've investigated a known phenomenon and found out new things about it.




Doug

[ustrax]

"Until now, Mars has generally been regarded as a desert world, where a visiting astronaut would be surprised to see clouds scudding across the orange sky"

Oh...I see...that little creative writing detail...

[tedstryk]

Very true. Martian clouds, both ordinary and dust clouds, have been known since the 19th century. They have been know to be carbon dioxide (well, most of them are) since Mariner 9 and assumed to be so longer than that. Plus they were clearly photographed from the ground by Pathfinder (the Viking 6 bit lander imaging system made imaging discrete clouds with any certainty impossible). Doug is right here. This is not an error or misinterpretation. The author of the press release is either hopelessly uninformed or a liar. The scientist interviewed, unless he was seriously misquoted or there was some serious language issue, is without question a liar. Shameful, that is all I can say, shameful. The sad thing is when media pick up crap like this and swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

Edit: Yes, I looked it up. Kenneth Herr and George Pimentel published a paper in Science in 1970 reporting the direct detection of carbon dioxide clouds by the infrared spectrometers aboard Mariners 6 and 7. Not to mention Mariner 9, Viking 1 and 2, Mars-3, and Mars 5, which also detected them (possibly later spacecraft as well - I am just listing "first wave" missions. I will also add that Todd Clancy directly detected CO2 clouds from the ground using microwave data.

[tedstryk]

Oh...I see...that little creative writing detail...

No, it ISN'T the creative part that is the problem. The fact that there are clouds visible in the Martian sky has been known for over a century, and they have actually been seen scuttling across the sky on a routine basis by Pathfinder and the MERs. The illustration is given to help the public connect with the "discovery." The problem is that there is no new discovery, and the idea that an astronaut would see clouds is in now way revelatory. The idea that OMEGA has changed how we imagine what we would see standing on the Martian surface is at best a horrible miscommunication (although it is difficult to see how), and otherwise is simply a lie. You can defend them all they want, but it is still a lie.

[centsworth_II]

You can defend them all they want, but it is still a lie.

Ok, guys, if this continues I'm going to have to move this discussion to the
"We Hate ESA Press Office" thread.

[ngunn]

Careful folks! You might put them off making any public announcements . .

[MarsIsImportant]

Although the clouds are not new, the Shadows caste by them are new. And the shadows could be seen from orbit. So the story is not about clouds, but the intensity of them. They may be stretching things a bit...but calling them liars?

Remember, "Only the Shadow knows!"

[ustrax]

You can defend them all they want, but it is still a lie.

Man...I'm not defending anyone, I hope an institution like ESA can do that for itself...sounds to me that everyone can defend them all they want...do you think that this release has come out of some sort of secret room where those evil ESArians want to fool the world trying to convince us that THEY discovered clouds on Mars?
At least I didn't get that idea...and I think who wrote the release was far from thinking that it might get this reaction...
btw...I'm with MarsIsImportant here, that's the important issue here...height, thickness, particles' size and composition, if not I must agree with centsworthII and move this posts...

[tedstryk]

I never suggested an evil ESA conspiracy, nor do I make a habit of doing so. Martian cloud shadows are also nothing new. This is exciting new data, but the Mariner and Viking infrared instruments, MOLA in passive mode, Phobos-2, and plenty of other groudbased and spacebased datasets provide valuable information on this. OMEGA data is excellent and is no doubt greatly enhancing our understanding of Martian clouds. Still, the idea that it has caused some radical shift in how we perceive them is simply untrue, and I can't see this being an accident.

[djellison]

That's about the full story there Ted. It's the total lack of acknowledgement of previous science, pretending that no one has studied this before. They're doing good science, that I am sure of. They're doing an utterly dreadful job of communicating that science. I would rather a press release like this didn't exist at all - as a European, and thus someone who's paid for that release to be written, it's embarrassing. Either the writer has never ever heard of google, or they are intentionally sexing it up. Both are frankly, not good enough. Plenty of scientists and engineers from the past couple of decades have worked long hours and dedicated their careers to doing Mars science - they would have every right to feel put out and somewhat insulted byt the lack of acknowledgement of their work with this announcement.

Doug

[peter59]

"Until now, Mars has generally been regarded as a desert world, where a visiting astronaut would be surprised to see clouds scudding across the orange sky. However, new results show that the arid planet possesses high-level clouds that are sufficiently dense to cast a shadow on the surface."

This is ESA's megalomany.

And surprise, martian sea of clouds 30 years ago.