The colors of Mars
Click for full image.
Actually today’s cool image tells us less about the real colors on Mars and much about the colors captured by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The photo on the right was taken on May 2, 2020, and shows a relatively featureless area to the east of 80-mile wide Byrd Crater in the high southern latitude of Mars.
The only major features seen on this photo are a series of rounded ridges that in the larger context map at the image site look almost like drainage hollows coming down from the crater’s rim about twenty miles away.
The colors, though exaggerated and not entirely as the eye would see them, still tell us something very real about the surface. As explained here [pdf]:
In spite of the variable level of color enhancement for the Extras products, we can make some generalizations to better understand what the stretched color images are showing. Dust (or indurated dust) is generally the reddest material present and looks reddish in the RGB color. … Coarser-grained materials (sand and rocks) are generally bluer … but also relatively dark, except where coated by dust. Frost and ice are also relatively blue, but bright, and often concentrated at the poles or on pole-facing slopes. Some bedrock is also relatively bright and blue, but not as much as frost or ice, and it has distinctive morphologies.
Thus, this photo is telling us that the lower areas are covered with dust (the red), while the rounded ridgelines are covered with coarser and bigger rocks. The brightest blue, which is facing towards the south pole, might also indicate frost or ice.
The map to the right provides the overall context. Today’s image is just off the edge of the map, to the east of Byrd Crater. At about 65 degrees south latitude, Byrd Crater is still quite a distance from the pole, though the edge of the pole’s layered deposits of ice (as shown by the reddish plateau) are only about 200 miles away. Finding ice here would thus not be surprising.
Though this location’s latitude is at the uppermost edge of the mid-latitude bands where scientists have identified many glacial features, its high latitude close to the south pole means that ice is very likely here, an underground ice table close to the surface. Though this is not confirmed, this is what the blue colors are suggesting.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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Click for full image.
Actually today’s cool image tells us less about the real colors on Mars and much about the colors captured by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The photo on the right was taken on May 2, 2020, and shows a relatively featureless area to the east of 80-mile wide Byrd Crater in the high southern latitude of Mars.
The only major features seen on this photo are a series of rounded ridges that in the larger context map at the image site look almost like drainage hollows coming down from the crater’s rim about twenty miles away.
The colors, though exaggerated and not entirely as the eye would see them, still tell us something very real about the surface. As explained here [pdf]:
In spite of the variable level of color enhancement for the Extras products, we can make some generalizations to better understand what the stretched color images are showing. Dust (or indurated dust) is generally the reddest material present and looks reddish in the RGB color. … Coarser-grained materials (sand and rocks) are generally bluer … but also relatively dark, except where coated by dust. Frost and ice are also relatively blue, but bright, and often concentrated at the poles or on pole-facing slopes. Some bedrock is also relatively bright and blue, but not as much as frost or ice, and it has distinctive morphologies.
Thus, this photo is telling us that the lower areas are covered with dust (the red), while the rounded ridgelines are covered with coarser and bigger rocks. The brightest blue, which is facing towards the south pole, might also indicate frost or ice.
The map to the right provides the overall context. Today’s image is just off the edge of the map, to the east of Byrd Crater. At about 65 degrees south latitude, Byrd Crater is still quite a distance from the pole, though the edge of the pole’s layered deposits of ice (as shown by the reddish plateau) are only about 200 miles away. Finding ice here would thus not be surprising.
Though this location’s latitude is at the uppermost edge of the mid-latitude bands where scientists have identified many glacial features, its high latitude close to the south pole means that ice is very likely here, an underground ice table close to the surface. Though this is not confirmed, this is what the blue colors are suggesting.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
False colors of astronomical objects have always been a “necessary evil” in science, but in my experience with star parties, so many of the public are disappointed in not seeing the “pretty colors” like they did in magazines and online. Some conversations would end up with long and drawn out explanations, while others folks would just walk away a bit let down. I started telling folks before they got to the eyepiece the “pretty colors” would not be there, but challenged them to look around and tell me what the =could= see. A fun test was to have the Orion nebula centered and ask them what colors they pick out. The younger kids (with more color sensitivity) got a kick out of seeing more than the parents.