Yes. The claim is for puddles on a steep cliff.

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It is?
Who made that claim?

It seems the image attached to the NewScientist article is not an image from Levin's yet to be published paper.

And I'm not entirely sure how but this article appears to address how puddles might form (and evaporate) on the Martian slopes.

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A.Dim, New Scientist gives credit of the image to him. This is an quote from that artice below the image.

As I mentioned before as the Red channel is actually Near IR (753nm filter)and not red, at best any image is only an approximation As there is no True Color red filtered image for it, I think the best can be done is either a image like mine with black sand, or like shows in the imaging teams version where it is darker red sand.

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OK more information on the Filter arrangement and location of the photo.

This is the same area after opportunity reached the crater rim.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/mer/2...86-516-245.jpg

And a small quote from NASA on it.

Thats the exact same filter arrangement used in the picture of New Scientist article. Guess they should of 'Checked' their sources.

*edited to add*

Nice to see I wasn't that far off on my own assembling of those filter channels. Althought it definately not black sand, but differences in minerals showing because of the filtering arrangement.

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From the article you cite:
Not relavant to this current deabte in any way. We're talking about puddles of water, today, on slopes in excess of 20 degrees and more like 40 degrees...something that defies the laws of physics.

If the image in question is not in the paper - then why is it cited - with a credit to Levin - in the NS article?

The planetary society has already responded. I don't believe it is referenced:

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000998/

Good find.

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It was, here:

Liquid Puddles found by MER rovers?

but it doesn't hurt to repeat it.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

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NASA says:
The panoramic camera took them through the camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters. The false color enhances subtle color differences among materials in the rocks and soils of the scene.

rhw:
To me this statement does NOT state that the colors shown were NOT there and are a result of 'processing' artifacts. It states that these filter combinations ENHANCES colors ALREADY there...i.e it is NOT 'making colors up'...they are enhancing EXISTSING colors.

This is a big difference to me.

PS: As to the moving of the thread. I am sad to see that the decision was made to move it. To me this means that no matter WHAT evidence we present and continue to TRY and present...if it challenges ANY mainstream theory...it is going to get relgated to here. I wonder if we go back years before when people were saying the seeps were liquid water and NOT CO2 which as Nick Hoffman's favorite mainstream theory or dry dust slides if ALL those threads, posts and folks were relgated to this partituclar forum...which has now been shown to just jump any anti-mainstream discussion here. Which means we can only discuss 'NASA accepted' theory in the Science forum without debate. Sad...I had thought things had improved here. I seem to have been mistaken.

Bob...

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Hi rhw007,
Don't take it personal. The move had nothing to do with any of your posts or comments.

Yes. Yes, it will. That's what this section of the board is for. Note, of course, that "against the mainstream" does not necessarily mean "wrong." If it turns out to be right, discussion of it will become mainstream and won't end up in this section.

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I don't see why you have a problem with the colors that even Nasa admits are not Red and Blue wavelength, but Near IR and Near UV. The only filter that was in the visable light spectrum was the green filter.

This combination of filters shows differences in minerals, as to what the bluish/black is, I haven't seen infomration on that yet.

As to how much of red and blue true color makes it though those filters, someone would have to dig up specifications on them. Usually filters only let that specific wavelenght through, but not always, some have a bandwidth. I don't know if these do or not.

There is plenty of evidence for Water on mars, such as the crater with a lake of Ice in the crater floor. This isn't needed. We are just 'proving' what a poor job of checking facts that New Scientist and Ron Levin did.

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Hopes this helps, found the information on the filters.

http://athena.cornell.edu/pdf/tb_pancam.pdf

The Near UV filter is a Short Pass filter (IE It's limeted to that specific wavelength). The Near IR one has a 20nm Bands pass (so a 740 to 760nm bandpass) which would not have much real red light to it. Visable Red is at 670nm.

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What's your definition of color? This is assigning colors to a combination of images that are partly outside the human visual range from a visual system that does not closely model a human's. The color selection is not being done to approximate what a human would see. Therefore, the result is "false color."

Do you understand that the evidence for the claim (puddles of water) was shown to be unreasonable? As it was put here:

Those can't be puddles -- unless the amazing "liquid" that puddles here on Mars in a freezing near-vacuum also has antigravity properties.

The claim as it was presented in the New Scientist article simply isn't credible. If the article misrepresented Levin and Lyddy, then I would expect to see a statement by them. As it is, it raises big questions about the quality of their research, which appears to be edging into Hoagland-like pseudoscience.

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

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Before this thread got moved, I came into it very excited, then I saw the evidence.

What convinced me?

Seeing the full image that the "puddle" image came from.

1 - Water does not sit on a nearly vertical surface.

2 - Rover tracks in the very material that is supposed to be water.

I also noticed a strange lack of reflections in the "water" in the pic from the article, if it was water it should be reflecting the rocks around it, even if just in silhouette.

Also, while it appears that there is a transparent material with features under the surface, if you look at the edges where the rocks meet the "water" you can't see the rocks extending into it.

There is no way this is water, I really wish it was, but it's simply not, no way around it.

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The processing demonstrates a failure to calibrate the three filters. Using calibrated L2 - 5 - 7 images produces slightly odd colours - but not thoe colours. To be honest, I think they've taken the uncalibrated JPG's that appear on the JPL website. They have been intentionally streched to ensure something is visible in all filters for the casual observer. Given the nature of JPG compression, this might lead to their incorrect assesment of a lack of detail within the regions in question.

It is only when using radiometrically calibrated data from the IMG's, and processing correctly ( in include the offset and scaling factor within the PDS Header ) that one can begin an assesment of actual colours. This is the sort of work expertly done totally outside of NASA by Dan Crotty.

Doug

Right.
If the claim is cliffside puddles, debunked.
If the claim is this photo is the bottom of a crater, debunked.

I'm not sure why Levin would purposely provide this image to NS along with this particular research.
I'm not convinced there won't be other, hopefully more accurate, images accompanying the published work.
And I'm not even sure how fine grains of sand instead would create such smooth liquid-like surfaces on steep slopes.

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With the wind constantly whipping around, only the densest particles of dust stay within the cracks. If my hypothesis is correct that the smooth surfaces are composed of an iron filing-like material, magnetism between particles also helps them stay put.

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It's soil really. I'm no geologist so I'm probably using the term wrong. What I mean is, it's not so much independent grains like you'd find in lunar regolith. It's hard-packed grains that stick together.

if you take a look at images like this one:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA09086.jpg warning, that's about 1Meg, here's a crop:


You get the impression that underground, Mars consists of big rocks packed in soil - like bricks mixed in mortar. A cliff is created by a meteorite, and then wind erosion starts wearing everything down. So if you imagine what a brick wall would look like after a couple of billion years, both the bricks and the mortar would be smooth.

BTW, those are sedimentary rocks in that picture, right?