Fantastic Mars picture

[Pesty]

Looks like Arizona

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4730...

[No Bend]

Thats quite fantastic.

And there's a blue sky, must have enough atmosphere for it then.

Edited by No Bend on Wednesday 7th October 22:33

[Pesty]

Hmmm not sure I guess they have colourised it then. I think you are right with no atmosphere no blue sky,

[HarryW]

Pesty said:

Hmmm not sure I guess they have colourised it then. I think you are right with no atmosphere no blue sky,

I though it was gravity that kept all the blue particles close to the surface, hence the appearance of a blue sky on earth, but on Mars Gravity is different and its the red particles that are held closer to the surface.

So you are right, they must have colorised the photo wrongly, what a daft mistake to make....

[Eric Mc]

Mars can show a blue tint to its sky on occasions. It's very much dependent on the nature of the particles suspended in the atmosphere and the sun angle. The sky is normally a salmon pink but with sun closer to the horizon it can turn blue.

[anonymous-user]

HarryW said:

I though it was gravity that kept all the blue particles close to the surface, hence the appearance of a blue sky on earth, but on Mars Gravity is different and its the red particles that are held closer to the surface.

So you are right, they must have colorised the photo wrongly, what a daft mistake to make....

Yeah NASA, what a bunch of idiots.

The reason is in the image description.

NASA said:

The colors are adjusted so that rocks look approximately as they would if they were on Earth, to help geologists interpret the rocks. This "white balancing" to adjust for the lighting on Mars overly compensates for the absence of blue on Mars, making the sky appear light blue and sometimes giving dark, black rocks a blue cast.

[Eric Mc]

The very first colour images returned by the Viking Lander in 1976 showed a blue sky. However, when they calibrated the image properly using the colour test card mounted on the lander the sky was show to be pink.