Comments on: Spirit sees phenomenal Martian vista

By: katwagner

katwagner — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 04:11:42 +0000

A sucker is born every minute and I am a world class sap. Shoulda majored in geology.

By: db26

db26 — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 02:39:21 +0000

I think its Thunder Mountain from Disneyworld…

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:42:38 +0000

It really is amazing how similar the two planets look.

At first I was skeptical, but as it kept going and going you drew me in. Good job. Awesome joke!

By: Sebastian Marchi

Sebastian Marchi — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:01:23 +0000

, while reading the post, I was wondering how the hell NASA got that incredible resolution!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:34:01 +0000

On a serious note, this brings me to the ignorant question of the day for you…if they bother sending something as far as Mars, why aren’t the pictures higher resolution?

By: PAS

PAS — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:02:10 +0000

So, the “Don’t be a jerk” policy doesn’t apply to the posts themselves?

Well played.

By: Daniel J. Andrews

Daniel J. Andrews — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:01:44 +0000

Ah! Nice one, Phil. You got me. Coincidentally like CR above I too missed the ocean for the same reasons CR did. Palm-head. I love getting fooled like this.

By: CR

CR — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:43:42 +0000

Oh, for the love of…
I’ve had computer problems that kept me offline for almost two days, and when I came back here, I got so caught up in catching up that I, too, completely misssed THE OCEAN in that pic. D’OH!

Good luck topping this one next year!

By: Sion Hughes

Sion Hughes — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:19:28 +0000

Argh godsdammit, you utter bastard!

That was mean, Phil. Mean, mean, mean.

Good one, though.

By: Thom

Thom — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:13:27 +0000

Phil,

Every attempt to pull an April fools prank on me failed, except this one. Phil you got me hook, line, and sinker.

Nice one

By: dhtroy

dhtroy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:58:43 +0000

Phil,

Of all the Web April Fools jokes today, yours was by far, the best.

It was clean, well done and if you weren’t paying close attention, easy to be fooled.

You had me, I was even willing to overlook the sharpness of the images and color changes, despite the fact that I know how old those rovers are … I thought … eh … maybe image processing cleaned them up a bit.

But then … yea .. that blue sky, yea … this isn’t an Arnold movie …

Well done, you got my vote for best April Fool’s joke.

By: ROCA

ROCA — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:51:41 +0000

I read this article on April,2nd…

By: Na

Na — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:21:49 +0000

My god, serves me right for not reading this until April 2nd (well, in my timezone anyway) and not paying attention to the date on the post. I was convinced, even though I couldn’t figure out the picture with the sky (truly, without context, how easy is it to get confused!) and thought the last pic was somehow photoshopped. So much for critical thinking…

By: J. D. Mack

J. D. Mack — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:47:51 +0000

Big chuckle when I got to the last photo! Thanks, Phil!

By: Tim Bennett

Tim Bennett — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:27:50 +0000

And here I was marvelling at what high-quality images NASA’s able to get from its rovers these days

By: Rogue Medic

Rogue Medic — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:10:17 +0000

Todd W,

I had forgotten about that thread. I left a message. You have incredible patience to deal with them as you do. Nice work.

I’m a bit tired and cranky and have a lot of other things to do, so I am not as patient. Not that you don’t have a lot to do, I am just letting everything get to me.

By: Patrick Lockerby

Patrick Lockerby — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:11:12 +0000

Ok, you got me.

I should have recognised that the erosion patterns were where the tourists had sneaked bits of rock for their gardens.

By: Clive DuPort

Clive DuPort — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:07:01 +0000

Well done Phil – you git! Someone once told me the word “gullible” wasn’t in the Oxford English Dictionary, so I looked it up…..

By: Michael Stills

Michael Stills — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:05:54 +0000

Having just finished pulling off a very successful April Fools day joke on my 11 year old daughter. I knew I needed to prepare for the inevitable “pay back”. My daughter has become very good and seeing through my deceptions and attempts to get her to believe the unbelievable. So I thought I would sharpen my mind by reading some sound skeptical and reasoned analysis by one of our best minds. You know, so that I would be ready to hear the “lie” in her elaborate and well thought out counter attack. So I came here and walked right into a Martian Trap. Well done.

By: Jon Lester

Jon Lester — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:03:26 +0000

Joe, that makes sense to me. Having helped with quite a few controlled burns in the forestry business, I know colors wouldn’t look the same under a dusty sky, and that would be even more so with a completely different atmosphere.

By: They are over 1775 days past warranty « A Man With A Ph.D.

They are over 1775 days past warranty « A Man With A Ph.D. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:37:29 +0000

[...] are over 1775 days past warranty April 1, 2009 — Richard by jfaherty17 Spirit sees phenomenal Martian vista: [Via Bad Astronomy] I’ve been so taken with HiRISE lately that I haven’t written much [...]

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:31:46 +0000

# Joe M Says:
Phil, you magnificent bastard!

I hope you read his book(s)!

J/P=?

By: Joe Meils

Joe Meils — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:30:12 +0000

Actually, as I recall, the initial photos from Viking One DID have blue skies… but then they looked down at the color balance chart on the footpad, and adjusted accordingly… (poof!) instant red skies. So Hogeland has it backwards… they were initially shifting the colors to make them less red…

By: Jon Lester

Jon Lester — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:18:13 +0000

I didn’t quite jump with excitement but you did get to me, because I was recalling Richard Hoagland’s allegations of NASA’s tampering with the colors in the Viking photos, to make the Martian sky look less blue. And, honestly, I started out thinking of how much the first couple of photos in your post reminded me of Georgia red clay.

By: Chip

Chip — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:16:06 +0000

Someone mentioned German tourists on Mars. I think that explains why Mars is so dry. They brought Sham-Wows!