THE REAL MARS?

Thanks to NASA, our perception of Mars is that of a dry, lifeless, inhospitable, dead planet. We are told that its atmosphere is virtually non-existent being only 1/100th that of Earths. When the first images of Mars began coming in from the Viking Lander, they showed us a vast sunny landscape strewn with varying sized rocks and dark red sandy soil.

It has been reported that the colouring in the Viking images was tampered with by JPL, specifically the strength in the red channel being increased. Before the alleged tampering, rocks with greenish patches were supposedly seen by physicist Dr Ron Levin but quickly covered up.  The technology on board the Lander certainly allowed for tampering or adjustments to the colour.

 “…accurate colour reconstruction of the array in the final images, though necessary, was not sufficient to guarantee true colour. Since many of the images did not have all this information available, the colours can vary significantly from image to image based on the reconstruction techniques used.”

Lets perform our own “reconstruction techniques”, and remove some of that extra red from a random selection of Viking images.

 

NASA Original	Alternative Answers Reconstruction

The Viking camera used old technology but still consisted of all three visible filters, red, blue and green. The new Mars Orbiter camera operated by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) only has red and blue filters. Green is synthesised by averaging out the red and blue colours.  MSSS openly admits on their web pages, that the colour images are not 100% correct. Colour images come with a warning:

“Warning: This color composite does not represent the "true" color of Mars. “

After seeing the blue sky from Viking, did they purposely remove the Green filter from future cameras to provide more control over the colours they were seeing?  Was it to help hide any evidence of green moss or grass?

Here is the landscape from the Mars Pathfinder mission.

NASA Original
Alternative Answers Reconstruction

It is important to note that three days before the Pathfinder landed, NASA stated in a press release:

"If dust diffuses to the landing site, the sky could turn out to be pink like that seen by Viking," says Philip James of the University of Toledo. "Otherwise, Pathfinder will likely show blue sky with bright clouds."

So they admit it, why dont they show us the pictures?  Now for some global shots from the latest Mars Global Surveyor camera.

NASA Original	Alternative Answers Reconstruction

By now you are probably asking, why is the colour of the sky so important to NASA?  The colour is important because NASA believes (publicly at least) that the atmosphere on Mars is only 1/100th of Earths.  The atmosphere is supposedly so thin that it has no colour except for the light orange tinge caused by dust from sandstorms suspended in the atmosphere.  This would mean that Mars is covered by near continuous dust storms all year round.

If there is no atmosphere, why are there thick clouds and a cyclone on Mars in the false coloured image below!?  Compare it to the image of a cyclone on Earth, shown on the right.  Based on the Mars cyclones white hues, it appears that it consists of water not dust, and is spinning like a regular cyclone on Earth.