Hopefully the Hoagland reference in the title will attract best of the SDMB’s debunkers. For those who don’t know, Richard Hoagland is the original ‘face on Mars’ guy, and is, of course, quite nutty. I read his stuff for fun, and because the articles on his webpage occasionally contain links to pretty pictures of Mars.
Anyway, his latest offering concerns the colour of Mars’ sky. It’s also a typically bloated anti-NASA rant, so to summarise it for those who can’t be bothered reading it (and I don’t blame you):
The first images to come back from the surface of Mars originally showed a pale blue sky and Earthy-brown ground, but were soon after altered to show a pink sky and much redder ground. This much is historical fact. However, whereas NASA claims this alteration was undertaken due to the original image being the result of human error (i.e. wishful thinking, to see Mars as more Earth-like), Hoagland (purveyor of THE SHOCKING TRUTH that he is) posits that it is, naturally, all a vast conspiracy. The original image was in fact the more accurate one, but the shadowy puppetmasters at NASA tweaked the colours to make Mars look barren and lifeless. Why? Because of some alleged, obscure 1950’s document, the ‘Brookings Report’, forecasted the collapse of civilisation if the discovery of ANY life beyond Earth was announced, or apparently even suggested.
Phew.
Now, to my question, which isn’t really related to Hoagland’s conspiracy, but was inspired by that article: what would the true colour of Mars’ sky be, to a human observer on the surface of that planet? Why do some pictures of Mars (see Hoagland’s article for examples) seem to show a bluish atmospheric haze around the planet, while some show this haze to be red or pink? Is it that the ‘true’ colour of the Martian atmosphere is blue, but all the dust blowing around makes it usually appear pink? I’m confused, and Hoagland was no help. Although he did make me giggle. At him.
Thanks.