Global color mosaic
ars has never been seen in such color before. We have the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft to thank for this view of the Red Planet. Thanks to its four color channels and five panchromatic nadir, stereo and photometric channels, the stereo camera not only displays Mars in three dimensions, but also in color.
The researchers have now used this to create a global color mosaic of Mars from 90 individual images that is unparalleled in its accuracy of color information. The image provides insight into the diverse composition of rocks, sands and dust on the Martian surface.
Most of the Martian surface is reddish in color, due to the high amount of oxidized iron in the dust on the surface. But it is also immediately noticeable that part of Mars is rather bluish, colored. These are grayish-black-blue-black sands, which are of volcanic origin and form dark layers of sand on Mars, but above all have been piled up by the wind to form imposing sand dunes or huge fields of dunes on the floor of impact craters. These sands consist of basaltic minerals, of which volcanic lava on Earth is also composed. Basalt is the most widespread volcanic rock on Earth - and throughout the solar system. The entire ocean floors on Earth are made of basalt, but so are the extinct volcanoes of the Eifel, Mount Etna in Sicily or the Hawaiian volcanoes.
Welcome to Photonworld – a platform for knowledge, interesting facts and science on the topic of light. Photonworld aims to provide a basic understanding of the physics of light and its countless phenomena. From medicine, to art and physics: all topics are covered.
Photonworld originated as an initiative of the excellence cluster the Munich-Centre for Advanced Photonics (MAP) and the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics (LAP) at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ).
The initiator of the project is Prof. Dr. Ferenc Krausz, Chair of Experimental Physics at the LMU and Director of the MPQ.
Photonworld’s Student Zone reports directly out of the PhotonLab, which is supported by the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST) and the DFG Research Unit FOR 2783. At the PhotonLab, schoolteachers and students can find up-to-date information about experiments and goings-on at the lab, and plan their own visit to the laboratory.
