Mysterious colors on Mars, near the landing site of Europe’s rover
Click for full image.
Cool image time! Today the science team for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) released a new captioned image, which I have cropped and reduced to post here to the right.
The photo was taken October 12, 2020, and shows a small very colorful area on top of an isolated hill. To quote the caption, written by Sharon Wilson:
An isolated, elongated mound (about 1 mile wide and 3.75 miles long) rises above the smooth, surrounding plains. Horizontal layers are exposed at the northern end of the mound, and its surface is characterized by a very unusual quasi-circular pattern with varying colors that likely reflect diverse mineral compositions.
…The origin of this mound is unknown, but its formation may be related to the clay-bearing rocks in the nearby Oxia Planum region.
Click for full image.
The photo is false color, combining wavelengths in red, blue, and the infrared. To the right is a section of the full image, showing the entire elongated mound. The white box marks the location of the section above. This second photo has been rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. Its colors are different than the image above because it uses different color filters, the red, blue, and green bands, thus producing colors closer to natural light.
As the caption notes, scientists don’t know what formed this isolated mound. Nor do they yet know the full meaning of the colors, or the cause of the many strange features on this mound.
The latitude here is about 19 degrees north. The location itself on the lower edge of the transition zone between the low northern plains and the southern highlands. The yellow in the first image as well as the red in the second suggests dust and sand. You can also see sand dunes inside the nearby craters. This is likely a dry place.
It is also near Oxia Planum, the targeted landing site of Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover, now scheduled to launch to Mars in 2022. The overview map to the right shows the landing ellipse, with this photo’s location about 130 miles away from the center of that ellipse and marked by the white cross.
To the west are the locations where Viking 1 and Pathfinder landed, in 1976 and 1997 respectively.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for full image.
Cool image time! Today the science team for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) released a new captioned image, which I have cropped and reduced to post here to the right.
The photo was taken October 12, 2020, and shows a small very colorful area on top of an isolated hill. To quote the caption, written by Sharon Wilson:
An isolated, elongated mound (about 1 mile wide and 3.75 miles long) rises above the smooth, surrounding plains. Horizontal layers are exposed at the northern end of the mound, and its surface is characterized by a very unusual quasi-circular pattern with varying colors that likely reflect diverse mineral compositions.
…The origin of this mound is unknown, but its formation may be related to the clay-bearing rocks in the nearby Oxia Planum region.
Click for full image.
The photo is false color, combining wavelengths in red, blue, and the infrared. To the right is a section of the full image, showing the entire elongated mound. The white box marks the location of the section above. This second photo has been rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. Its colors are different than the image above because it uses different color filters, the red, blue, and green bands, thus producing colors closer to natural light.
As the caption notes, scientists don’t know what formed this isolated mound. Nor do they yet know the full meaning of the colors, or the cause of the many strange features on this mound.
The latitude here is about 19 degrees north. The location itself on the lower edge of the transition zone between the low northern plains and the southern highlands. The yellow in the first image as well as the red in the second suggests dust and sand. You can also see sand dunes inside the nearby craters. This is likely a dry place.
It is also near Oxia Planum, the targeted landing site of Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover, now scheduled to launch to Mars in 2022. The overview map to the right shows the landing ellipse, with this photo’s location about 130 miles away from the center of that ellipse and marked by the white cross.
To the west are the locations where Viking 1 and Pathfinder landed, in 1976 and 1997 respectively.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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