Talk:Mars/Archive 2

message: According to Aviation Week, NASA is expected to announce today that water has been identified on Mars.  This seems to be confirmed from this news item of a "important find" at NASA itself.  Guess we'll know in a few hours.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.170.38.9 (talk) 10:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm...  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bizzybody (talk • contribs) 09:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, I tried to edit the incorrect sentence that says it is only likely to be water - to the fact that there is water - but apparently as a new registered user I cannot.  Can someone make the change, or remove the protection. MasterSci 02:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Water Found On Mars? 

message: Hele wondering if the "unofficial flag of Mars" shown in the infobox of this article is of sufficient importance to be the leading image in this article? It seemingly takes precedence over the image of the planet itself. --DannyZ 01:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And I third the motion, so I've taken it out of the infobox. There's already a whole section for it at Mars#The Mars flag. Bryan 09:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unofficial flag of Mars 

message: I removed the reference to methane being produced by "the decomposition of the mineral olivine" because the literature I can find on the subject requires carbon dioxide dissolved in water (which produces hydrogen when it comes in contact with olivine) which then, apprently, combines with the carbon dioxide to produce methane.   Wouldn't this require liquid water... something Mars hasn't had for a long, long time? At the very least, if this really is possible, there should be a bit more explanation of the process (even if it's just a few more words).  This page  seems to have a reasonable explanation. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.  
Also, might we think about archiving the talk page?  It's getting pretty huge.—ZorkFox (ষTalk) 03:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Olivine and methane 

message: Even as a thumbnailed animation, :Image:Marsdustdevil2.gif has a size of 1.1 MB. This creates quite some traffic each time the page is loaded (and potentially delays the display of the other images). Could someone create a static thumb and/or can this be reduced to a separate link to the image page? Femto 15:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dust devil animation 

message: the bit about the zero altitude / datum of mars is rather unsatisfying.. what is meant by a fourth-degree, fourth order spherical harmonic gravity field, anyway? and how does that correspond to a hieght at which pressure is constant? and how does that correspond to a height at which temperature is constant? are they all the same? if so, why? i couldn't find this information on google (but found loads of sources saying blindly "fourth-degree and fourth-order spherical harmonic gravity field" without even giving a rough explanation of what that is). does somebody know more about this? Mlm42 09:20, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I edited the equivalent section in Areography, but am not sure whether it's better than the current wording here in Mars. The mention of a "fourth-degree and fourth-order spherical harmonic gravity field" is useless unless we can get a clear explanation of it. Besides, how relevant is it if the actual method for choosing the basis is the triple-point/air pressure method? --Kris Schnee 20:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  datum vs. zero altitude 

message: The Image layout is too cramped. The positioning is bad, and there is just too much images. Can anyone solve this problem? Maybe we should delete some images that are alike, or maybe resize them. --Exir KamalabadiJoin Esperanza! 04:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image Layout 

message: *The red, fiery appearance of Mars is caused by iron(III) oxide (rust) on its surface.
Is this verified fact?  I was under the impression that the surface of Mars was a dull brown, with the reddish colour being caused by dust in the atmosphere?--Brideshead 21:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colour? 

message: The microscopic 'water-worn' particle (imaged) looks suspiciously like a tektite.Duncan.france 01:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image of 'Water-worn' particle 

message: I'd like to create some start-ups for Mars surface features and I've got my head all twisted around trying to figure out what to use for longitudinal points. I understand that the latest pattern is "planetocentric longitude" with 0-360 degrees East, as our Timekeeping on Mars page says and as the ESA has informed me. Perhaps unfortunately, Google Mars has apparently decided to do 0-180 West and 0-180 East to make things intuitive for Earthlings. Click on Sinus Meridiani (the Martian Prime Meridian) at the Google site and then randomly click on things nearby and you'll see what I mean. I have every expectation people are going to be using Google when they want to do Martian latitude and longitude which may be problematic. Add to this that many sources use the old 0-360 degrees West system, "planetographic longitude", and it's a mess. Marskell 15:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Longitude 

message: It seems to me that there should be some mention of the martian moon capture paradox.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding of facts is this:
There is no current good explanation for how mars could have captured phobos and deimos. Without an appreciable atmosphere for airobraking, and with no 3rd body present, gravitational capture is not possible (or is incredibly unlikely), in general. In addition, presumably phobos was captured relatively recently, ruling out the possibility that it was captured at a time when mars did have a thick atmosphere. (it orbits too close to mars to survive for very long, due to tidal loss of orbital speed). This is an unresolved mystery. 
Pog 17:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capture of Moons 

message: This line is in the Jupiter entry:
"Jupiter is usually the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus); however at times Mars appears brighter than Jupiter."
In the Mars entry we have:
"Mars can be seen from Earth by the naked eye with a brightness of up to -2.9 magnitude, only surpassed by Venus, the Moon and the Sun."
The two seem to contradict each other.
Anyone know which is correct? Ajkgordon 17:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They don't contradict each other, because the Jupiter entry is talking about the brightness at any given time, and the Mars one is talking about the brightest they get.  That is, sometimes Jupiter is brighter than Mars, but when Mars is at its brightest it's brighter than Jupiter.  Brian Sayrs 17:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, well spotted! Thanks. Ajkgordon 20:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Except that, at its brightest, Jupiter can reach magnitude -2.94. This would appear to exceed the maxima of Mars at -2.9, but I've seen -3.0 listed on some sites for the closest opposition approach. ;-) What might be interesting in the "Astronomical observations" section is to list the maximum magnitude of the Earth as seen from Mars, as well as the magnitude of Jupiter (which should be greater than that seen from the Earth.) — RJH (talk) 16:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fourth brightest object? 

message: What does extrasolar planet HD 80606b have to do with anything?  This either needs explaining or removing. 81.86.10.157 15:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good call, problem has been fixed now. It was a mistake that I had made. The correct name is 5261 Eureka. Tuvas 16:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference to HD80606b 

message: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects/Collaboration - Nominated for Collaboration of the week - --GW_Simulations|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail 19:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects/Collaboration]] 

message: Well, I've found alot more references for the various parts of this article. I'm going to take a bit of a break from it, but as you should be able to see, things are looking pretty nice. If someone could finish off the work, and check the references added, it'd be nice;-) I think that's one of the major things we needed to do to get this to FA status, so... Tuvas 19:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: Mars has been made Astronomy collaboration of the week for the week of June 13-June 19.  Please make suggestions for ways to improve this article here or by all means, Be Bold! --Volcanopele 22:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collaboration of the Week: June 13-19 

message: I would like to know how many hours of sunlight mars gets on it each day
Rigman
:It's very simple. Take the number of hours in the day (24.6 or so, off the top of my head, in the article it has the exact value), and divide it by two, and you have the answer. Tuvas 02:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But Mars has axial tilt, like Earth, so has variable sunlight hours through its seasons. Ajkgordon 08:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but then the question becomes alot more complex, depending on the location, time of year, etc. Still, the average will be as I said. Tuvas 19:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sunlight on mars 

message: The kick-off has been done the first money is already out for the Pasteur payload of the ExoMars Rover. The point that ITAR made a cooperation impossible is not true. The Urey team of the JPL [a] is stll active and this will be an mostly american instrument (there have to be at least three european companies in this team). The Atmospheric Pressure Matrix Assisted Laserdesorbtion and Gas Chromatography -- Mass Spectrometer is also consisting of a german fench and US team, in which the ITAR basically stopps every question from europe to be answered from the US. 
[a] Development and evaluation of a microdevice for amino acid biomarker detection and analysis on Mars A. M. Skelley, J. R. Scherer, A. D. Aubrey, W. H. Grover, R. H. C. Ivester, P. Ehrenfreund, F. J. Grunthaner, J. L. Bada,  R. A. Mathies, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 102, 1041-1046 (2005)--Stone 17:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ExoMars

message: From the introductory paragraph:
:As of 2006, there are parts of Mars that are more photographed than parts of Earth. [citation needed]
I think this should more correctly be "photographed with higher resolution"; it's a pretty trivial observation which hardly needs a citation, e. g. the Viking landing site is surely photographed with higher resolution than some site in one of Earth's deserts or polar regions. IMO this sentence should be made somewhat more specific or (probably the better option) deleted completely. Icek 01:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed.. Its not a meaningful statement. My bedroom is more photographed than parts of Earth. Phidauex 00:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More photographed than Earth

message: I have gotten a few emails from people saying that Mars will be extremely close to earth at 12:30 on August 27th.  I have no clue how true this is, but the wikipedia page doesn't say anything about it.  I think that this page should at least mention it, whether its a scam or not. The email says that Mars hasn't been this close in 5,000 years and won't be again for 60,000 years or something.  They say it will be the same size as the moon to the naked eye.  If this is the case, it would be quite a sight to see.  Thanks ahead of time to anybody who answers my question.
71.57.48.153 23:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a chain letter that seems to resurface almost every year since 2003. On August 27, 2003 Mars was closer than in 59,619 years. Although it was brighter than usual, it wasn't that much bigger. The change compared to other very close oppositions (times when Earth is between Sun and Mars, i.e. they are on opposite sides from us i.e. Mars is closest to us) was minimal. If Hubble imaged Mars during these oppositions, you wouldn't tell the difference from the images. The "Moon-sized" Mars part is nonsense. For more, see Bad Astronomy website articles from 2003, 2005 and 2006.--JyriL talk 23:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, Mars was well visible on August 27th, 2003. On this August 27th, it won't be far from solar conjunction (behind the sun)!--JyriL talk 12:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: As big as the Moon on August 27th 2006?

message: I can not find any scientific publication except one for teachers from JPL which does use this term. ISI does not even give a single hit while google scholar gives a hand full. Only some strange pages on the net use this term. The discussion in the archive points it ould very good. Areology is research on the subject of the whole planet not only the rocks. The right word for studies on the planet earth does not come up to meright know may be there is no such word at all.--Stone 15:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This has already been hashed over at least once.  The archive contains a record of that debate.  Again, it found that Geology, rather than Areology, should be preferred.  Cheers, --Plumbago 15:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If anybody can find a citation in a article worth mentioning areology it would be fine, but uptill than this use is unreferenced at best.--Stone 12:02, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My admittedly anecdotal experience is that areology is not used by working Mars scientists (areologists? :)).  A search at adsabs.harvard.edu (a high traffic, NASA sponsored searchsite of professional astronomy articles) gives no hits for areology but over 3000 for the combination of "Mars" and "geography".  Given this and the ISI, Google scholars, and general net results cited by Stone, I'm changing the name of the section to Geography. Jespley 17:22, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I just realized that I was getting confused between areology and areography.  Nonetheless, my point stands and I'm going to change areography to geography.  I'm new to wikipedia so hopefully I'm not rudely setting off an edit war. Jespley 17:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Help! I've realized this is more complicated than I thought.  There are links to an areography wikipage but Martian geography is already taken.  Simply changing areography to geography will require wholesale rearranging of pages and page names.  Anyone want to help me so that I don't create a chaos of broken links and stranded pages? Jespley 19:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm holding off editing for the moment and those interested might consider discussing the issue of the term "areography" Talk:Areography page. Jespley 19:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Areology

message: Why are only the NASA missions to Mars listed in a table, and not the ESA and/or other missions? DaMatriX 18:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Mars Express Orbiter is an ESA project. NASA has had the most success with Mars - historically the Russians were pretty jinxed just as NASA didn't have much luck with Venus.  Sophia 00:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have change the template accordingly.  Sophia 00:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-NASA probes 

message: Would it be possible for someone to add a phonetic pronunciation for the chinese name for Mars? It seems very strange to have something like that in the lead paragraph without a translation.  Stardust8212 18:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese Name 

message: Hasn't been updated in a very long time. I presume that editors interested in Mars might be interested in the portal? (and yes I know this is arguably out of process for the talk page here) JoshuaZ 03:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portal:Mars 

message: My reasoning in putting back a deleted reference to The Martian Chronicles is that it's one of the most famous works by a famous author, an SFWA Grand Master . --Kris Schnee 18:48, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do agree that this is a very famous work - on the UK school syllabus when I was there as well as a mini series screened in the 80's .  Sophia 20:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Martian Chronicles 

message: (First time posting, please forgive any stuff-ups!)
Could someone possibly add some information about the polar ice caps "melting", please? This seems to be cited as proof that our own planet is warming up due to increased solar activity rather than greenhouse gases, but from what I read measurements have only been made for a short time, and it seems there are other possible explanations (eg dust storms, regional variations). Alexessory 02:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polar ice caps melting? 

message: Hey all. I've been looking at the exploration section, it looks like it needs to be re-written. It make it look as though the most notable thing about Mars exploration was it's large failure rate, which I think there should be a better way to explain it. I'm going to try and work on something, but you might take a look at it. Tuvas 03:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exploration section 

message: Article about real aerography--Stone 14:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: can anybody relate this to mars?--Stone 14:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Areography

message: This whole section needs some work as noted by whoever put the dispute flag up.  I've started doing a little tidying up and added one reference though I'm new to wikipedia so I messed up the formatting and to get the full article with actual numbers you'll need a subscription to JGR.  We need to add a whole section about long term climate change at Mars which is one of the driving forces behind science at Mars.  Maybe I'll write something up when I get a chance.  Here's a place to start for anyone with a subscription to Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6843/full/412237a0.html Jespley 18:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll get to work on the long-term climate change (my specialty) as well as tidying up the climate section some more. Mplmetman 18:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fixing up the climate section

message: I'm missing where in the sky Mars can be seen from Earth. Is it part of a constellation? --Bisco 10:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Being a planet rather than a star it is not a fixed part of a constellation. --Guinnog 11:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right now it can't be seen, it's almost directly behind the sun. But, it varies constantly, where it can be seen. Tuvas 14:34, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Link to a site showing, among other things, the current apparent positions of planets. Icek 02:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mars seen from Earth 

message: I deleted this: "Interestingly, the perihelia of Ceres and Mars are on the opposite side of the Sun, minimising the perturbation of Ceres' orbit by Mars."
I say having opposite-side perihelia makes for closer approaches. I used Solex 9.0 to find the Ceres-Mars approach distances from the present until 3000, and then did the same for an
imaginary Ceres that is the same, except its perihelion on the same side of the Sun as Mars' is. 
The real Ceres approaches Mars to within 150 Gm 47 times, while its counterpart did so 23 times. The real Ceres beat the record approach 36 times. 
I would think having more close approaches increases the perturbations. Maybe for some reason opposite-side perihelia does minimize the perturbations, even though the two bodies come closer. But we need a citation or explanation before putting that in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saros136 (talk • contribs) 
:I think this is simply a coincidence. The perturbations should be so minimal compared to the effect of Jupiter I guess this fits the Wikipedia:No original research criteria, unless this one was ever studied in a scientific means (but then it needs to be referenced). Thus I fully agree with removing this sentence. andy 11:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ceres and Mars

message: I feel a decent article benefits from an IPA key after the subject. However, there are several different codes depending upon where you come from (the UK, the US, etc. and local variants therein). I had introduced a consistent RP pronunciation guide across all planets' articles, but these have been subsequently modified, partially anyway. It begins to look a bit messy at the beginning when you start specifying different pronunciation keys, especially given it's the opening line of the article, as is currently the case in the Mars article. I would like some opinion on whether it is worth invoking a "standard" IPA key, or not. Perhaps the solution is to abolish the pronunciation guide altogether. Conversely, perhaps on a larger scale some thought should be given to a separate facet of every article layout that has a pronunciation box in it. I just don't like the current state. Kris 16:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the first line 

message: There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects#Planet_infobox_conventions_.28km_vs._AU_vs._miles.29 on standardizing the planet infoboxes, as well as the possibility of changing the planet diameter to radius. If you care about these things, let your opinion be heard there. Lunokhod 10:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: :Still, of all the planets in our solar system other than Earth, Mars is the most likely to harbor liquid water, and perhaps life, so the myth has had enough influence that even now probes carry packages to attempt to find microscopic life. 
This line says that everyone sending a probe is stupid - needs a rewrite.  Tempshill 15:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look on the data from Galileo and from Viking neither Europa nor Mars have life. Close inspection of all available data does not change the asumption that tha chance to find life is really small, but the politicians resposible for the funding of the missions are lured best with the myth of life. You can do a lot of science if you tell them you go on a hunt for aliens, but you do not get money for geological surch for tectonic movment on mars or radiation chemistry of the surface layers or the errosion phenomens in water free conditions. The Myth of life is everywere, but even highly capable instuments were not able to find one, so what does this tell?--Stone 15:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Line