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Vandalism in the Geography section

"On September 18, 2009, powerful telescopes from a spacecraft orbiting Mars took pictures of nine pyramids on the surface of Mars. The pyramids, as it seems, are not of the natural origin. The images include striking statues of human and animal faces, clearly visible from space, as well as large drawings featuring the profiles of primates and canines."

This sounds totally legit, guys.

18.248.6.245 (talk) 09:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Taken care of by Kwamikagami with this edit. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 13:16, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Mars/Earth Collision

Is there a tiny solid possibility or not enough information?

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2803/when-worlds-collide-earth-mars-impact-possible

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8094088.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8093962.stm

--Rent A Troop (talk) 09:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the possibility is there. In billions of years, Mercury may crash into Venus, or Venus into Earth, or Mars into Earth. -- Kheider (talk) 10:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Climate

Small note: under Climate it says "Of all the planets, Mars's seasons are the most Earth-like". I think everyone (including me) understands the meaning, but I think it sounds a little funny nevertheless. If it said "Of all the planets in the solar system", it would perhaps be a bit more accurate? The alternative is of course that it means that it is the most earth-like planet "we" have found, although I strongly doubt that it is? 84.215.121.104 (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, limiting the comparison to just the Solar System would make sense. I think it is also assumed that means "at present".—RJH (talk) 22:00, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


Hello, I think that here is an error in temperatures −140 °C (−220 °F), 20 °C (68 °F). They do not correspond to above mentioned temperatures in "Physical characteristics" in beginning of the article. In additional, the reference [30] doesn't inform about temperatures, but in reference [4] Minimum/Maximum Mars Surface Temperatures are -87 to -5 °C. Please, correct the article and my errors in English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dima125 (talk • contribs) 11:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that's a problem. The NASA worldbook entry gives yet another set of values: -125 degrees C (-195 degrees F) near the poles during the winter; 20 degrees C (70 degrees F) at midday near the equator.—RJH (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Future missions

//------

Future Missions, last paragraph:

"Mars Direct, an extremely low-cost human mission proposed by Bob Zubrin, a founder of the Mars Society, uses heavy-lift Saturn V class rockets, such as the Space X Falcon 9, or, the Ares V, to skip orbital construction, LEO rendezvous, and lunar fuel depots..."

Please do not state that the Falcon 9 is a Saturn V class rocket. The Saturn V was able to get appr. 100 tons into LEO. As currently (Nov 18, 2009) planned, the Falcon 9 will be able to get 10,450 kg into LEO (http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php), the Falcon 9 heavy 29,610 kg (http://www.spacex.com/falcon9_heavy.php). This would mean about 10 tons to a Mars transit trajectory with chemical propulsion. Very difficult to see how a spacecraft of this size would have the capability to support a manned crew for the duration of the voyage (>6 months), let alone to get them down to the surface of Mars. While I'm a big fan of Elon Musk and SpaceX and believe they have the potential to make a decisive contribution to manned space missions, including those to Mars, it is quite difficult to send a direct mission to Mars without assembly and/or fueling in Earth orbit using his current launcher designs.

Thfledrich (talk) 02:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

//------

Atmospheric details

All of the planetary data, where there is an atmosphere, should contain fields for estimated total volume and not simply the adiabetic pressure. --Slamlander (talk) 17:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

At what pressure and temperature? Maybe total mass would be useful, but volume only makes sense when you have these other attributes settled. Remember under normal conditions, atmosphere stretches well out into space. Supposedly the Venusian atmosphere streams out (due to interactions with the solar wind) past the orbit of Earth. It's reasonable to expect similar circumstances for every planet and moon with an atmosphere. -- KarlHallowell (talk) 17:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

FAR needed

This FA has been listed at Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing for a very long time; if not cleaned up soon, it should go to WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes there are some problems. I'll try to help.—RJH (talk) 19:12, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay I did what I could to get this article's citations up to snuff. For the few remaining fact/dubious tags, if citations can't be located then those entries may need to be yanked.—RJH (talk) 22:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Issues

  • To me the following statement appears to be too technical for an encyclopedia, per WP:TECHNICAL. It will need to be made accessible to a general audience or removed.
    • Rough surface texture at decimetre (dm) scales, thermal inertia comparable to that of the Gusev plains, and hydrovolcanic cones are consistent with the lava flow hypothesis. Furthermore, the stoichiometric mass fraction of water in this area to tens of centimetre depths is only ~4%, easily attributable to hydrated minerals and inconsistent with the presence of near-surface ice.
  • The "In culture" section has a real problem with lack of citations.
  • I removed the following text from the "In culture" section because it is unsourced and merely serves as a language translation:
    • It is known as al-Mirrikh in Arabic, and Merih in Turkish. The etymology of al-Mirrikh is unknown. In Urdu and Persian it is written as مریخ and known as "Merikh".
  • I'm having trouble confirming the following statement: "Ancient Persians named it Bahram, the Zoroastrian god of faith and it is written as بهرام." As I understand it, Zoroastrian is a monotheistic religion that instead has multiple Yazatas. There is also some confusion because there have been multiple rulers of Persia named Bahram. The latter disambiguation page links Bahrām to the divinity Verethragna, the hypostasis of "victory", rather than a god of faith. Sources also list Bahram as the modern Persian name for Mars, rather than the ancient name. Needless to say it looks like a confusing mess, and the current sentence looks wrong.

RJH (talk) 19:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the South Pole coordinates must be listed, but I tense some amount calling its omission "POV" and "Bias". It is simply an artifact that most of the human population, by virtue of continent latitude, live in the Northern hemisphere. It is not intended to advance a certain viewpoint - and there is no malicious intent at all, a common element in "POV" and Bias. Moving on, yes, the coordinates must be listed. Do we have a source on this? -RadicalOne---Contact Me 23:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I believe you add (or subtract) 12 hours (180°) from the right ascension and flip the sign on the declination. Thus: RA 09h 10m 44s, Dec −52.886  50°. That would put it in the constellation of Vela,[1] within a few degrees of Kappa Velorum.—RJH (talk) 22:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
RadicalOne may wish to review Systemic bias. I agree that no malice or bias is intended by good-faith contributors, nevertheless bias is often introduced inadvertently for reasons that are mentioned in the SB discussion.
On the co-ordinates, the methods for finding the antipodes of a point on the celestial sphere are not sufficiently well-known among the general population for them to be able to derive them with confidence. It is safer to provide the co-ordinates of both poles to save the trigonometrically-challenged reader from wondering "where is the south pole of Mars?", or, even worse, "does Mars have a south pole?" It does no harm to mention both poles.
Yes this can be done, provided a suitable source is available.—RJH (talk)
On another pole-related topic, it is not stated explicitly that the pole is the rotational pole. It may be worth mentioning the location of Mars' equivalent of the ecliptic pole, and the precessional period of Mars' rotational poles. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 07:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I agree it would be good to mention the current martian precession and nutation.—RJH (talk) 18:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Consistency

The body of the article describes Olympus Mons as 26 km in height. The photo caption describes Olympus Mons as 27 km in height. The Wikipedia entry on Olympus Mons also describes it as 27 km in height. 76.23.157.102 (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be good agreement even between reputable scientific sources. Values range from 24–27 km. The MOLA data should have settled the issue, but I'm finding variation even there.—RJH (talk) 19:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
That logical : there is no sea level on Mars. So there is several definition of the zero level. Cdlt, VIGNERON * discut. 16:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
True, but it is not clear that is the explanation since the sources don't usually list the basis for the altitude value. It'd be good to have a definitive source using on a specific standard.—RJH (talk) 16:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Need a better reference

The reference listed for the rotation period of Mars only gives two digits of accuracy, whereas this article has many more digits. Clearly the currently listed reference is not the source for this data.—RJH (talk) 23:08, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You speak about "24.622 96 h"? The german article give near the same period "24 h 37 min 22 s" (24.622 777...) with this source [2] (24.6229, exactly "24 h 37 min 22.45 s"). I dont know where the last "6" come from (I can only find mirror of the article or not really reliable sources like [3]). I think we could deleted this digit, the precision (under the second!) is good enough, no? Cdlt, VIGNERON * discut. 10:51, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Agreed.—RJH (talk) 17:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Question about consensus

Of the editors who regularly watch and maintain this article, could you please tell me which of the following formats you prefer for maintaining inline citations?

(1) Cite templates wrapped with no spaces:

Liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars due
to its low atmospheric pressure, except at the lowest
elevations for short periods.<ref name="h" /><ref>{{Cite
journal|journal=Journal of Geophysical
Research|date=2005-05-07|last=Heldmann|first=Jennifer
L.|coauthors=et al.|title=Formation of Martian gullies
by the action of liquid water flowing under current Martian
environmental conditions|url=http://daleandersen.seti.org
/Dale_Andersen/Science_articles_files
/Heldmann%20et%20al.2005.pdf|format=PDF|volume=110|page=Eo5004|doi=10.1029
/2004JE002261|accessdate=2008-09-17}} 'conditions such as now
occur on Mars, outside of the temperature-pressure stability
regime of liquid water' ... 'Liquid water is typically stable
at the lowest elevations and at low latitudes on the planet
because the atmospheric pressure is greater than the [[vapor
pressure]] of water and surface temperatures in equatorial
regions can reach 273 K for parts of the day [Haberle et
al., 2001]'</ref> Water ice is in no short supply however,
with two polar ice caps that appear to be made largely of
water.<ref name="kostama">{{Cite journal|journal=Geophysical
Research Letters|volume=33|page=L11201|date=June 3,
2006|last=Kostama|first=V.-P.|last2=Kreslavsky|first2=M.
A.|last3=Head|first3=J. W.|title=Recent high-latitude icy
mantle in the northern plains of Mars: Characteristics and
ages of emplacement|url=http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref
/2006/2006GL025946.shtml|doi=10.1029
/2006GL025946|accessdate=2007-08-12}} 'Martian high-latitude
zones are covered with a smooth, layered ice-rich mantle'.
</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Byrne, Shane; Ingersoll,
Andrew P.|title=A Sublimation Model for Martian South Polar
Ice Features|journal=Science|volume=299|issue=5609|pages=1051–1053|doi=10.1126/science.1080148}}
</ref> In March 2007, NASA announced that the volume of water
ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted, would be
sufficient to cover the entire planetary surface to a depth
of {{Convert|11|m|sp=us}}.<ref>{{cite<nowiki/> <br> web|publisher=NASA|date=March 15, 2007|title=Mars' South Pole <br> Ice Deep and Wide|url=http://jpl.nasa.gov<br> /news/news.cfm?release=2007-030|accessdate=2007-03-16<nowiki>}}</ref><nowiki/> <br> Additionally, a <nowiki>[[permafrost]] mantle stretches from the
pole to latitudes of about 60°.<ref name="kostama" />

(2) Indented citations with spaces:

Liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars due
to its low atmospheric pressure, except at the lowest
elevations for short periods.<ref name="h" /><ref>{{Cite
journal
 | journal=Journal of Geophysical Research | date=2005-05-07
 | last=Heldmann | first=Jennifer L.
 | coauthors=et al.
 | title=Formation of Martian gullies by the action of liquid
water flowing under current Martian environmental conditions
 | url=http://daleandersen.seti.org/Dale_Andersen
/Science_articles_files/Heldmann%20et%20al.2005.pdf
 | format=PDF | volume=110 | page=Eo5004
 | doi=10.1029/2004JE002261 |accessdate=2008-09-17
}} 'conditions such as now occur on Mars, outside of
the temperature-pressure stability regime of liquid water'
... 'Liquid water is typically stable at the lowest
elevations and at low latitudes on the planet because the
atmospheric pressure is greater than the [[vapor pressure]]
of water and surface temperatures in equatorial regions can
reach 273 K for parts of the day [Haberle et al.,
2001]'</ref> Water ice is in no short supply however, with
two polar ice caps that appear to be made largely of
water.<ref name="kostama">{{Cite journal
 | journal=Geophysical Research Letters | volume=33
 | page=L11201 | date=June 3, 2006
 | last=Kostama | first=V.-P. | last2=Kreslavsky |first2=M. A.
 | last3=Head | first3=J. W.
 | title=Recent high-latitude icy mantle in the northern
plains of Mars: Characteristics and ages of emplacement
 | url=http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL025946.shtml
 | doi=10.1029/2006GL025946 |accessdate=2007-08-12 }} 'Martian
high-latitude zones are covered with a smooth, layered
ice-rich mantle'.</ref><ref>{{cite journal
 | author=Byrne, Shane; Ingersoll, Andrew P.
 | title=A Sublimation Model for Martian South Polar Ice
Features
 | journal=Science | volume=299 | issue=5609 | pages=1051–1053
 | doi=10.1126/science.1080148 }}</ref> In March 2007, NASA
announced that the volume of water ice in the south polar ice
cap, if melted, would be sufficient to cover the entire
planetary surface to a depth of {{Convert|11|m|sp=us}}.
<ref>{{cite web
 | publisher=NASA |date=March 15, 2007
 | title=Mars' South Pole Ice Deep and Wide
 | url=http://jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-030
 | accessdate=2007-03-16 }}</ref> Additionally, a
permafrost mantle stretches from the pole to latitudes of
about 60°.<ref name="kostama" />

I have to admit to being heavily biased in this regard since I find the second form much easier to maintain as the inline references are clearly distinguishable from the regular text. However, others have differing opinions about this practice. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 19:57, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

  • I prefer #2 with the indentations myself. I also prefer infoboxs the same way. -- Kheider (talk) 20:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
  • I generally use the first way (though with more spaces between sections, but with not line breaks). The second method breaks up the article when it is read while editing. I am warming up to the way Ruslik0 edited the Moons of Saturn article, where all the full references were added using {{Source list}} and then the shorter <ref name="refname"/> was used in the main body of the text. --Volcanopele (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes I think that might be a good way to go. However, it only allows ten entries. Do you just use multiple copies of the template when you overrun the list? (Yeah, it can be used multiple times.)—RJH (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Source list use

Per the above, I tested {{Source list}} on another article (SX Phoenicis variable) and it worked like a charm. I think that will definitely help simplify the text editing. Does anybody object if I try converting this article to use the Source list template?—RJH (talk) 15:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan. It would clean-up the article greatly. But with 200 references that is a lot of cut & pasting. -- Kheider (talk) 17:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Yep. But it can be done incrementally.—RJH (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

The External links section of this article seems a little bloated. Per WP:ELPOINTS, this section should normally be kept to a minimum. Perhaps some can trimmed and others can be used as citations?—RJH (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Animated image

The tiny image File:Marsrglobe2004.gif has a download size of 228 Kb, by far the largest on this article. Most of the remaining images are in the 10-30 Kb range, with the infobox image requiring 11 Kb and the article text 124 Kb. What do you think of pulling the animated graphic from the Mars#Historical_observations section and shortening the download time? (The image download dimensions were determined by right-clicking on the image and selecting Properties.) Thanks.—RJH (talk) 22:58, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Consistency of units

The use of units in this article seems rather inconsistent. The 'Geology' section lists distances in 'km' with 'miles' in parentheses. Thereafter distances are in metric. The 'Polar caps' section spells out 'kilometres' in some places then 'km' in others. Sometimes 'metre' is spelled out, while in 'Other features' an 'm' is used. The 'Atmosphere' section begins with pressures in 'Pa' and the equivalent 'kPa' in parentheses, then switches exclusively to 'kPa'. The 'Geography' section lists pressures in 'Pa' and 'mbar'. The infobox lists temperatures in Centigrade and Kelvin. The 'Climate' section lists temperatures in Centigrade and Fahrenheit.

A little more consistency would be good, I think.—RJH (talk) 17:30, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I took care of the conversions. It was decided to ban the conversions from astronomy articles; it just doesn't get enforced. Saros136 (talk) 18:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I meant no more conversions from SI to English units.Saros136 (talk) 18:46, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

the formation

how the size of this article is 120 KB and it is a featured article and there is no anything about the formation of Mars in it?! no one noticed this?! it is necessary to write a section about this --Abbad Dira (talk) 16:50, 24 March 2010 (UTC).

What would it cover that isn't already mentioned in the Formation and evolution of the Solar System article? Perhaps a section on the past history of Mars could be developed that would include the planet's formation. Then again the history is already covered to some degree by the Geology section and elsewhere.—RJH (talk) 16:57, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
not all of article`s readers knows about the "Formation and evolution of the Solar System" article. article about "past history of Mars" would be good, or at least a section in the "formation and evolution of the solar system" article. formation of the solar system article is general, i think there is a somethings to say about the Mars formation different from just a general information about the planets formation. such as this information from this link:

Astronomers think that Mars is relatively small because Jupiter finished its own formation a little earlier, and scooped up most of the available material. The gravity from Jupiter also seems to have prevented the formation of another planet in between Mars and Jupiter; instead, we've just got the asteroid belt.

--Abbad Dira (talk) 14:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC).

Okay. But this would probably fit in a single paragraph in the Geology section.—RJH (talk) 22:59, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
A paragraph has been added.—RJH (talk) 18:54, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
  • thanks, and may it would be more better if the formation was in sub paragraph within the geology paragraph, what do you think? --Abbad Dira (talk) 02:53, 2 April 2010 (UTC).
    • Yes, I was thinking that there could be a sub-section in Geology about the formation and evolution of the planet. But that could easily encompass most of the section content.—RJH (talk) 14:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Needs properly tidying up if there's to be a formation paragraph. Is it really necessary though? The solar system formation page should cover this... I've added a bit of geochemistry stuff nevertheless Ezkerraldean (talk) 14:24, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Mmm, the information you have added doesn't seem to quite match what is in the source. You have written that the depletion in moderately volatile elements is due to the strong solar wind. The reference assigns the cause to late accretionary events on the Earth. Am I reading it incorrectly?—RJH (talk) 15:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Geological epochs

Please see Talk:Geology of Mars#Geological epochs. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 15:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 2012rc, 11 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

The panoramic picture under 'geography' is captioned as "thi approximate true-color image..." I believe this to be a spelling error. It should be corrected to "this approximate true-color image..."

2012rc (talk) 01:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done  fetchcomms☛ 02:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Well spotted, 2012rc. It sneaked in here, on 23 March. Nice one.  Chzz  ►  02:39, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
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