NASA did it again, a landing on Mars! I stayed up until 2 o’clock Dutch time to see the event on NASA TV. It was really cool to hear the mission control at JPL say 2 mile, 900 meters, 400 meters, 100 meters, 50 meters, 20 meters, touchdown! I don’t remember if that were the exact words but you understand what I mean I think.
Two hours later the first image found its way back to Earth but then I slept already. This morning I saw they posted a lot of images online. I like the following one:
So that’s how the surface of Mars looks like! Looks familiar, I’ve seen many images from the MER rovers and from Mars Pathfinder. On this image you can see the horizon, which is less far away then our terrestrial horizon because Mars is smaller. What’s also visible in this image is patterned ground: polygonal patterns which also occur in the terrestrial arctic and are attributed to the seasonal freezing and thawing of water. There is also of course this familiar reddish color. NASA has the following to say about this color:
“This is an approximate-color image taken shortly after landing by the spacecraft’s Surface Stereo Imager, inferred from two color filters, a violet, 450-nanometer filter and an infrared, 750-nanometer filter.”
I understand it is difficult to really record the true colors of Mars. I guess we need to go there to find that out!
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