E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
This mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows Mount Sharp, also known as Aeolis Mons, in a white-balanced color adjustment that makes the sky look overly blue but shows the terrain as if under Earthlike lighting. This is just a small segment of a wider panorama assembled from image data collected on Sept. 20, 2012. The sky has been filled out by extrapolating color and brightness information from the portions of the sky that were captured in images of the terrain. A raw-color version of the mosaic shows the scene's colors as they would look in a typical smartphone camera photo taken on Mars. Click on the image to see a larger version from NASA.
If you could pull up a 3-mile-high mountain from Mars and plop it down in California's Mojave Desert, it'd probably look much like this latest color panorama from the Curiosity rover's science team. This little piece from the panorama doesn't do justice to the whole picture: You really should see the whole thing at high resolution to get a sense of just how much Mount Sharp, a.k.a. Aeolis Mons, looms over the scene where NASA's six-wheeled robotic lab has been working.
The most jarring thing about the picture is the blue sky. No, the Martian sky doesn't really look like that. The Red Planet's atmosphere is filled with iron-rich dust that turns everything into shades of butterscotch, burnt orange and brick. To see Mount Sharp as you or your smartphone camera might see it if you were actually there, check out this true-color version of the panorama.
The blue-sky version has been processed to reflect a white-balanced view, as if the picture were taken in an earthly rather than a Martian setting. Why would scientists bother with a phony view of Mars? "White-balancing helps scientists recognize rock materials based on their experience looking at rocks on Earth," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains in Friday's photo advisory. It's as if Curiosity was able to get rid of all that red dust in the air and take a clear picture of the mountainside from miles away.
The pictures for this panorama was taken in September, while the rover was en route to its first destination. For the past couple of months, Curiosity has been studying the rocks at a site known as Yellowknife Bay, and it's already turned up some amazing discoveries about Mars' past — including evidence that the area was capable of supporting microbial life billions of years ago.
Within the next couple of months, Curiosity is due to turn around and begin its 6-mile (10-kilometer) trek to the foothills of that big mountain. Pictures like this panorama will help scientists figure out exactly where their nuclear-powered robotic geologist should be going.
Trace the Curiosity rover's journey to Mars and see the pictures that the six-wheeled robot has sent back from the Red Planet.
More about Mars:
- Martian rock reveals life-friendly conditions
- What's next for Mars Curiosity rover
- NBC News archive on Mars
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other science coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
There were blue skies on Mars at the end of 'Total Recall' (original, not crappy remake), and there may be again if comet Siding Spring impacts, but not for a few years until the dust settles.
And some time after the dust settles, all of the water vapor will be stripped away due to the lack of a magnetic field. Very regrettably, but that is true. Any terraforming of Mars will have to take the lack of a magnetic shield into account.
Man I agree about the crappy remake. They had some cool ideas about society, and great action sequences in the new one, and the future cities were nice to look at. But they didn't even go to Mars? WTF? Why didn't they just give it a different title? Because it was a completely different movie.
Okay...
Total Recall is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. The short story is called We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.
...Now you can understand why they call it Total Recall (as opposed to the original long-ass title)
And, in the original short story, the main character never explicitly goes to Mars. The story dances around whether or not he had actually gone to Mars, but you'll just have to read the story. I'm not going to spoil it for you. But you should know that, sadly, there is no Kuato in the short story.
As for the newer Total Recall movie, there were instances where they were sticking to the short-story version. But like all Hollywood movies, they just had to go and circle-jerk things up with dumb hover-car chases that make no sense in relation to the plot. And the whole thing about geo-political-travel-through-the-center-of-the-Earth-garbage... That's not very Phildickian, and it really ruined the movie for me. As a stand alone sci-fi movie it's okay. But as a "Total Recal" movie, it stunk like fresh poo in an old out-house.
And that's my two cents. If anyone wants to talk about the writings of Philip K. Dick, that is something I actually know something about and don't have to turn to wikipedia to refresh my memory. Also, Schwarzenegger movies (although I did have to look up the spelling of his last name).
Also, Colin Farrell is a goon.
mob, good post, but a little less, please. I haven't seen the new one yet.
Gee. I think the "OdyClub" has actually grown to include other planets! (http://www.odyclub.com/forums/). Our family is definitely onboard, although there have been a few 'quirks' (quarks?) along the way, if you will! - RC
Hey Detroit, there was never blue skies on Mars for at least a billion years, its a dead planet now!
Hey Danno, Look at the picture above... Blue Skies. The atmosphere that Mars has can facilitate blue skies. (about 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon and contains traces of oxygen and water. -from wikipedia)
The atmosphere is not very dense and contains quite a bit of dust. Mars' red soil leads to red dust and dusty skies lead to red skies... But on a clear day... Well, just look at the picture above.
Also, a distinction should be made that whether or not a planet is "dead" does not impact the color of the sky.
RE: DannoMN,is living proof that THEIR IS STILL SOME INTELLIGENCE LEFT...... here on EARTH!
> IGNORE THE IDIOT-ANTI-SMOKERS!..... they know not WHAT THEY SAY?.... just need to argue & disagree, YUP.
oldsmokerusa, What is your comment if not an outcropping of your own need to argue & disagree.
H'yup.
it just seems like there are more natural triangles on mars than on earth, at first I thought it was the chemical composition (non cubic crystals) then I figured it was the lack of life which may have a preponderance to dislocate sharp pointy objects (as if dinos and monkeys a like made it a point to denature points). But in this photo I don't notice as many triangles, so I wonder if it is a result of digital dithering, a trick of the eyes or just the expectation of the viewer.....heck it's always user error, maybe it's the latter. Very nice picture, with out a known reference point it is hard to realize just how large that hill really is. It is a mountain! Now it's back to looking for triangle shaped rocks for me, only noticed a few that were round cylinders or spirals or the like, and most of them are over by oppy.
Things would be sharper for two reasons. The lower gravity allows items to stand up that would collapse on Earth under their own weight, and also water erosion on Earth tends to reduce sharper angles.
Now if we found pebbles in an ancient stream bed on Mars, that would be awesome. But again, keep in mind that on Mars, the water would also have weighed less. The chemical effects would be the same, but where we have erosion, for example, due to the weight of glaciers, that would be lesser on Mars.
Well, not to feed the trolls (you are trolling down the comments section, like mob marley, and adding two bits to everyones post, rather than making your own post and discussing from that position, oh well, figured you did not realize) but you do make a great point. Of course with less gravity the dust would remain in the atm longer, giving a more vignitted picture. I have considered the relative weight distribution on the martian surface as a possible reason for more triangular rocks, but I am of the conclusion it is actually an inherent property of the molecular structure that makes up the martian terra. Pehaps the notable arid conditions integrated over the length of time are to account for that non-cubic crystal structure I am eluding to, not sure. I thought we did find pebbles in and around the yellowknife area streambed?
I am of the opinion that if the weight (as opposed to mass) of the water was less, it would meet with less resistance and perhaps flow faster? it seems counterintuitive, I know. If so we could expect the erosion on mars to be "ramped up"....but that does seem funny, most of what the rover's have documented does not seem even close to some of what we see here on earth.
For those following. The comet ain't gonna hit mars.
Marvelous pic. ©2013
Somehow it doesn't really surprise me that if Mars had blue skies (currently) that it would look a lot like the dryer parts of California. Then again, I'm hard to surprise.
.....BOO!
(had to try)
;-)
YO? did you happen to notice "THE-OFF-ROADS-4X4-TRACKS-ON-IT"????? LMFAOOOOOOOO
laugh your f-ing ass off off off off off off off off?
(you see what it's like when people read too much into what they see?)
I know you added so many o's to your "lmfao" because you were guffawing a great deal. I also know that the "tracks" you are looking at are not 4X4 tracks. They are geologic features.
Why not photoshop dinosaurs onto it while you're at it? You can then call it How Martian mountain would have looked on earth during the Jurassic period as imagined by Jules Verne during a lunar eclipse. What was the point of this?
The article explains what the point is of doing it like this. Did you bother to read it before deciding to give us the largesse of your wisdom?
The reason to not photoshop in some dinosaurs is because there are no dinosaurs on Mars. But there are small amounts of oxygen in the rarified atmosphere of Mars. So, under certain condition you can get some blue hues. You may never get quite that much blue sky but it's not impossible to get blueish sky on Mars. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, Mars can have blue sunsets much like we get orange and pink sunsets here on Earth.
The pictures from Mars, prove that Mars is very much like Earth. I would like to see other parts of Mars, like the poles, from Curiosity's cameras.
That would be cool, but you'd have to send a whole new Curiosity class rover to the poles in order to get those pictures. This MSL won't be visiting those locations (at least not anytime soon, and I would be amazed if it were even possible).
xcuz me? ... IT IS "E A R T H" = DYSNEY STYLE, it is.
Disney style? When was the last time Disney made anything that someone want to look at?
Have we forgotten Phoenix already? We've had surface views of the northern polar region of Mars, since 2008.
hmmmmmmm........ obviously nobody has picked out the "OFF-ROAD-4X4" tracks in that sand dune! LOL
NASA & DYSNEY STUDIES KEEP TRYING, gotta give em that, yup.
%how-to-bury-wasted-megabux-government-style%.... 0 ya, "WHILE~CHOPING~PUBLIC~SERVICES"! YUP...........
Oops they forgot to smooth those over. Sloppy hoaxing!
My ASS!! What about those footy prints to the left of Curiosity? Were they made by the Martian who took the picture?
Impressive--for MS Paint on Windows 98...
Actually, a 3 mile high mountain on earth would usually have snow at the top, and it would also have trees
I spent awhile looking at the huge picture and kept thinking to my self, it's hard to get the scale of it because there are no trees or anything to distinguish the size of it. I know it's supposed to be 3 mi high but without any form of reference to size it was hard for me to get a sense of scale.