In the previous page, I explained and demonstrated the colorization issue. I wondered if this colorization is just a simple mistake or a more thoughtful action.
I discovered that NASA has been confronted on this issue and felt they have to provide an answer, which they attempted on their web site, where I could find a complete explanation page on this issue.
The NASA position is that the colorization is not a fraud, they colorize the picture to reflect the "true" colors of Mars, and they try to demonstrate it. They claim that the few uncolorized picture they have published are the "wrong" ones.
On the following URL, you can read this statement, but, in the very same page, I could quickly understand that the colorization process is a fruad indeed. Instead of proving NASA is right, it contains proofs that NASA is willingly and knowingly lying about the colorization of Mars:
www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4212/ch11-4.html
On the previous page, I published a picture of the Mars lanndscape on which you can see both the Mars surface (tainted in green this time!) and the colorized Kiking lander. I pointed at a detail of a cable of the lander Viking which is obviously colorized in red because the red colorization overlaps a part of the photograph which is actually in black and white.
On the NASA web page mentionned above, NASA states that they use the very same objet, the red cable, as a measure of the red aspect of Mars!
The whole story takes a rather silly turn: NASA uses colorized objects as measure to colorize other objects.
But there is more to it: The text near the NASA explanation picture states:
"Photos permit comparison of the color of the Viking lander on Mars (at left) and Earth (above)- especially the orange cables. Tim Mutch used this guide to show that the red-sky rendition of the Mars landscape was the correct one. In the Earth photo, Jim Martin stands beside the science test lander in the Von Karman Auditorium at Jet Propulsion Laboratory."
Did you notice the problem? This is the problem: the picture used to illustrate this statement does not show the sky!
Think about this:
You will need to read the rest of the Mars section of this web site to get all the information:
NASA colorizes pictures of MARS in red because it hides the green color component on the rocks. It hides any object that would be green.
Also, as you can see in the previous page, Mars without colorisation is not at all the colorized Mars. It is another planet. Instead of a rusty, rocky, dead planet, it looks much more like... a place to live.
