[X] My Assistant

[David Palmer]

The idea that the Lower Formation of Mt. Sharp is of lacustrine origin (lakebed sediments) has rather fallen out of favor recently, but I just finished my essay on Mars, "An Interpretation of the Geology of Gale Crater & Mount Sharp, with Implications for the History & Habitability of Mars," which I have spent over one year researching and writing, and the primary thrust of this paper is to offer a fresh defense of the lacustrine model, incorporating some fairly original ideas on my part. I'm not a professional scientist, but this is a labor of love that springs from a near-lifelong interest in Mars (since I was a young boy in the 1960s). And I'm trying to publicize it prior to Curiosity reaching Mt. Sharp, as that will be a test of my theories, and I'm hoping to get some recognition if I'm right. So here's the link for all interested readers: http://galecratergeology1.tumblr.com/post/...le-crater-mount

[djellison]

Of the entire 4 page work - this is the part that I find most obviously factually incorrect....


From section 4 - "there are actually very few perspectives within Gale that show the sky directly above the horizon"

This is patently false. Every image you include after that comment has the sky in it. Every. single. one. There are hundreds - hundreds and hundreds that do - as well as the end-of-drive MAHLI postcards that get taken after each significant drive. Your claim is just totally false.

"NASA now seems to have wised up to what the actual sky color of Mars is, has quietly dropped its former references to the “pink” or “salmon” sky of Mars, and recently there have been photos and panoramas released from earlier surface missions, apparently re-calibrated, that show a green-tinted sky similar to Curiosity’s"

Also false - and the images you include are not NASA's - infact, I think they're Olivier de Goursac's - but you don't credit him appropriately. Many are manual colorizations of navcam mosaics.

And finally - I'm really not sure how it's possibly attempt to conduct a discussion on the color of the Martian sky without including references such as...

BELL ET AL.: CHROMATICITY OF THE MARTIAN SKY
http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/Bell_etal_SkyColor_06.pdf

or
MAKI ET AL. : The color of Mars: Spectrophotometric measurements at the Pathfinder landing site
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029...E01767/abstract

You can have you own opinion - but please don't simply brush aside careful scientific analysis because it doesn't match your opinion. That's not scientific. If you think they're wrong - then you have to do the work to explain why. 30+year old anecdotes that have nothing to do with Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity or Curiosity do not constitute scientific discourse.

[mcaplinger]

a green-tinted sky similar to Curiosity’s...

Moreover, as has been discussed at length on this forum, the green tint is largely if not completely an artifact of the Mastcam IR cut filter bandpass, and is not a real feature of the martian sky.

[David Palmer]

Moreover, as has been discussed at length on this forum, the green tint is largely if not completely an artifact of the Mastcam IR cut filter bandpass, and is not a real feature of the martian sky.

I DID state that the actual sky color of Mars is near-neutral, and thus that any liminitations in the instrumentation, or slopiness in the processing of the data (or its ultimate display on a monitor) will skew it towards either the red or green or blue....and it is clearly the case that the earlier (especially Viking) images over-did the red. This is confirmed by the fact that Mars doesn't look that red in a telescope....it is actually a slightly ruddy yellow.....similar to desert terrains on Earth.

[djellison]

I DID state that the actual sky color of Mars is near-neutral,

And this 'statement' is contrary to the two peer reviewed articles I cited above. Despite being from different scientists using instruments on different spacecraft, 7 years apart, on different parts of the planet - the Pathfinder and MER (both A and B ) results are in excellent agreement regarding the color of the sky on Mars.