Talk:Mars
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Please update to reflect the success of India lower down the article in the Exploration section as the one of the countries to have sent a mission and also the first Asian country and the first to achieve orbit on first mission - you have identified the satellite in the initial paragraphs but not in the exploration body where the additional detail might best be inserted. Please update highest temperature on Mars. While the conservative figures quoted are from Nasa, there are other Nasa sites especialy rover site which quotes much higher numbers. Would somebody please further research and update. A quote from nasa rover source at : http://marsrover.nasa.gov/spotlight/20070612.html Change min-max surface temperature. Min is -153 °C and the max is 20 °C according to NASA. Source: http://quest.nasa.gov/aero/planetary/mars.html 212.81.21.19 (talk) 01:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Incorrect conversion of summer max temps in S. Hemisphere : 30C <--> 54F which is correct?
"Aluminum" really? Step it up America. |
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An event mentioned in this article is an August 27 selected anniversary.
- /Archive 1 - 2005 and earlier
Unofficial flag of Mars
Just 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)
- I agree - I think it should be removed, or at least moved further down the page. -Berek 08:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
- 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)
Olivine and methane
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. [1] 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 [2] 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)
- I've added a bit about the process, with more information under Atmosphere of Mars, with a reference to the original paper. Mlm42 23:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Richard C Hoagland
The article references the fact that probes have vanished. Go to Enterprise Mission, Richard C. Hoagland's Homepage. He says that someone or something is taking these things out. Martial Law 22:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC) :)
Everytime Mars is discussed, especially on Coast To Coast AM, Richard C. Hoagland is consulted. Martial Law 22:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC) :)
- There's nothing fun in that. It's always bad when crackpots get a chance to spread their ideas in public.--Jyril 23:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Dust devil animation
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)
- moved animation to Dust devils article. Mlm42 23:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
datum vs. zero altitude
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)
- moved section to Areography.. but still don't have a good explanation. Mlm42 23:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Image Layout
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)
- moved some images to other pages.. i think it's better now. Mlm42 23:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Colour?
- 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)
- added reference for this fact. Mlm42 23:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Image of 'Water-worn' particle
The microscopic 'water-worn' particle (imaged) looks suspiciously like a tektite.Duncan.france 01:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Longitude
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)
Capture of Moons
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 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)