Talk:History of Mars observation

Remote sensing
Two small paragraphs describing the most recent observation? Am I missing something? Viriditas (talk) 10:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Most of the recent examination of Mars has taken place via spacecraft, which is described in its own article. I deliberately avoided redundancy, but I added a brief mention to demonstrate that some remote sensing is still taking place. Is there something specific you want to have mentioned?&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll get to that, but I'm still not clear on why there are only two small paragraphs. For example, there is a lot of material about the HST observations, and you don't even point the reader to the most current research on the subject.  Good articles should at least try to be somewhat comprehensive.  You've cited the press release, but it would help if you add a relevant publication and quote the objectives and results. Viriditas (talk) 05:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the observation. I will rescind the GA nomination.&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see why. All you had to do was expand the paragraph.  I'm not even reviewing this article. Viriditas (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll expand it later. Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 16:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Heliocentrism, Geocentrism, etc...
The whole section on the various models of the Solar System proposed throughout history seems to me a bit tangential and too detailed for this article. After all, the Heliocentrism and Geocentrism articles exist for this very reason. Going into the details of who came up with what is a little much, and no effort is made to connect the various models to the observation of Mars itself. It might thus be a good idea to prune the section down to essentials, and relate to Mars specifically. Athenean (talk) 19:51, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Reluctantly, I guess I agree because I'd had similar thoughts about that section in the past. I've gone through and trimmed it back considerably.&mdash;RJH (talk) 22:05, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, it reads much better now. Athenean (talk) 22:27, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources
The following sentence, in the Orbital Models section is problematic: Possibly influenced by the work of the Syrian astronomer Ibn al-Shatir, in 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published a heliocentric model in his work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.  The source used  does not say such a thing, as is immediately apparent upon reading it. Rather, it makes it very clear that no Muslim astronomers proposed a heliocentric model, and that the only possible similarities between the works of Ibn Al Shatir and Copernicus were strictly algebraic in nature. Athenean (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I guess we read it differently; the article is an attempted refutation of said argument, and clearly stated that past authors had argued in favor of the possibility. The article does not completely disprove the influence; therefore it remains a possibility. But it is merely a curiosity at this point, so I guess I'll live with it being removed.&mdash;RJH (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * My reading of the article that Athenean mentions is that no-one "that a scholar might listen to" has ever argued that Ibn al-Shāṭir had a heliocentric theory (for the obvious reason that there is absolutely no evidence that he had any such theory).
 * There really ought to be some discussion somewhere though on the similarity of Ibn al-Shāṭir's models and Copernicus's, as it was an important discovery (although no route of transmission has yet to be uncovered). This isn't discussed in the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium article and it's only poorly covered in the Copernican heliocentrism one. If I get the chance, I'll dig up some references this weekend and add something reasonable about it.
 * All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 23:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

X-ray emission problem
Something that RJH might like top take a look at. The text current has this: "This emission may be caused by X-rays from the Sun scattering off the upper Martian atmosphere, along with interactions between ions that result in an exchange of charges.[87] The latter emission has been observed out to eight times the radius of Mars by the XMM-Newton orbiting observatory." It begins by talking about emission in the singular. But it is discussing two sources of the emission. However, then the text refers to "the latter emission..." This appears to suggest to me two things: that there are two emissions, not one emission; and that they have separate features / distinct characteristics. The text needs to both be grammatically consistenct, in terms of telling us whether we are dealing with a singular or a plural, but probably also needs to be clearer about how there are two types of x-ray emission, detected in different ways, and with different features. Hopefully someone who understands more about this than I will be able to tweak it. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your observation. I've tried to clarify the wording.&mdash;RJH (talk) 14:40, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And thanks for the fix. that's clear now. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Front page
The next opposition of Mars is April 8, 2014. That may be a good date for a front page request of this article. Regards, RJH (talk) 18:17, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistency
The article has "In 375 CE an occultation of Mars by Venus was noted." It also says that Maestlin's observation of the 13/10/1590 was the "only" recorded occultation of Mars by Venus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.154.25.93 (talk) 15:33, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It is implied that Chinese saw the occultation of 375 A.D. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.154.25.93 (talk) 15:45, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Thanks for catching that. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * See http://occultation.org/on/volume10/onv10n02.pdf This has, "On July 30, 358 A.D. Venus occults Mars as observed from China. On January 14, 375 A.D. Venus occults Mars again." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siberian Patriot (talk • contribs) 14:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm, a dead link. RJH (talk) 18:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If you type the link into the top bar it might work. In any case, the dates are worth considering. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.154.11.36 (talk) 08:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The following fairly solid-looking reference:

lists Chinese records of Mars occulting Venus in 368, 375, and 405 (on p. 114). We can probably go with that. The paper lists an uncertainty of up to a day, but just the year should suffice. Curiously, in 1170 they saw Mars being occulted by Jupiter; I'd sure like to know how that happened. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:56, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... in the Refining planetary parameters section the article says "In 1927, Dutch graduate student Cyprianus Annius van den Bosch made a determination of the mass of Mars based upon the motions of the Martian moons, with an accuracy of 0.2%. This result was confirmed by the Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter in 1938." But de Sitter died in 1934. Could you mean he confirmed this in 1928? One would need to check the reference, but that doesn't appear to be an easy thing to do. If de Sitter actually made the observation, there's probably a copy available online that you could cite. Wouldn't that make more sense than the article that's currently cited? Daryl Janzen (talk) 18:22, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Details
The article states, "prior to the invention of the telescope, nothing was known about the planet besides its position on the sky". Not quite: its overall color is also observable: the ancients knew it as the Red Planet, and I seem to recall that its hue was sometimes observed to vary (usually taken as a portent). --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 14:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Dubious
The section "Refining Planetary Parameters" states "This result was confirmed by the Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter in 1938.[79]" However, de Sitter died in 1934. There is an error in this sentence, and I can't sort out what it is because the reference is way too obscure. In my opinion, the citation should be changed as well. De Sitter's articles are largely available online, so why not cite the primary source? Daryl Janzen (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You could see the source by clicking on the link given in the footnotes; I have made it clearer by linking directly to the pdf rather than having to click on the "full printable article" link in the bibliographic record. The original references cited there are: C. A. Bosch De Massa's van de Groote Planeten, Baarn 1927, and W. de Sitter "On the system of Astronomical Constants" Bull. Astr. Inst. Netherl. vol. 8, no. 307, 1938. There is an explanatory appendix by the article editor at the latter article; the first three chapters were written by de Sitter before his death, and then the editor finished it off. DrKay (talk) 10:13, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

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