Mars As Never Seen Before: ESA’s Mars Express New Global Color Mosaic — ESA's Mars Express mission |
To mark 20 years of ESA’s Mars Express, the High Resolution Stereo Camera team has produced a new global color mosaic: Mars as never seen before. The mosaic reveals the planet’s surface color and composition in spectacular detail. Darker grey-toned areas of Mars represent grey-black basaltic sands of volcanic origin; lighter patches show clay and sulfate minerals; and the large scar across the planet’s face is Valles Marineris. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/G. Michael, CC BY-SA 3.
Left: A red-green-blue composite showing how the surface looks in visible light. Note the light blue color of the northern and southern limbs, caused by the camera having a shallower view through the Martian atmosphere . Such regions were excluded from the global mosaic. Until now, suppressing this effect during image processing has reduced variations in color between different parts of Mars. But to create this mosaic, the HRSC team instead color-referenced each constituent image to a color model derived from high-altitude observations, allowing them to preserve color variations and reveal a far richer color view of Mars than has been seen before.
Mars is famous for its reddish color, which is caused by high levels of oxidized iron. However, large parts of the planet appear to be rather dark and blue-toned here. These are grey-black basaltic sands of volcanic origin that form far-reaching, dark layers of sand across Mars. They pile up as they move in the wind, creating imposing sand dunes and dune fields within impact craters.
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