The Odyssey spacecraft sees blue dunes on Mars

In the sky, we recognize Mars by its red color. It is caused by iron on its surface. And because the planet has a sparse atmosphere, you can see the color from Earth, especially in the telescope.

In April, NASA released a previously unpublished unique image that could lead us to wonder if Mars is also blue.

You see white in the image bluish dunes occurring in the polar cap region of Mars. They cover an area about the size of France.

The photograph is actually a jigsaw puzzle of images taken by NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which has been orbiting the planet since October 2001. Its main task is to use a spectrometer to study the composition of the surface of Mars and map water on it.

Drawing of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft in Mars orbit. | source:
Profimedia

The presented image comes from the Thermal Emission Imaging System spectrometer. This probe device naturally sees Mars in colors other than the human eye, for which the colors in it are false. One would actually see the cold duma as dark places.

Areas with lower temperatures are detected by the spectrometer in bluer tones, while warmer areas bathed in sunlight are displayed in yellow, orange to dark red.

Spektrometr helps NASA experts identify the material of the planet by measures how Mars heats and cools.

The title image only shows a section of the image, which covers an area thirty kilometers wide. Here you can see it in full width.

Mars dunes in full beauty with a polar cap. | source: NASA / free for commercial use

The image is part of a set of images to mark the twentieth anniversary of Odyssey, the longest-serving spacecraft orbiting Mars.

“The Odyssey spacecraft provided us with invaluable information. Before Odyssey, we didn’t know exactly where the water on Mars was,” NASA quoted project scientist Jeffrey Plaut of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which controls the spacecraft, as saying.

– .