What types of terrain are found on Mars? Part of the answer comes from thermal imaging by the robot spacecraft 2001 Mars Odyssey [ http://mars.jpl.nas…] currently orbiting Mars [ http://www.nineplan…]. The above picture [ http://photojournal…] is a superposition of two infrared images [ http://themis.asu.e…], a black and white image taken during Martian daylight and a false-color image taken at night. For the daytime image [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], dark colors mean cool temperatures, dropping from about -5 degrees Celsius [ http://www.unidata.…] to low as -35 degrees Celsius [ http://www.astro.uu…]. Shadowed regions appear particularly dark, while grooved structure [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] on the floor of Melas Chasma [ http://ic.arc.nasa.…] indicates successively overlapping landslides [ http://www.csc.noaa…]. In the nighttime swath, blue areas have cooled relatively quickly, indicating a composition of fine-grained dust and sand [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…].
Explanation
What types of terrain are found on Mars? Part of the answer comes from thermal imaging by the robot spacecraft 2001 Mars Odyssey [ http://mars.jpl.nas…] currently orbiting Mars [ http://www.nineplan…]. The above picture [ http://photojournal…] is a superposition of two infrared images [ http://themis.asu.e…], a black and white image taken during Martian daylight and a false-color image taken at night. For the daytime image [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], dark colors mean cool temperatures, dropping from about -5 degrees Celsius [ http://www.unidata.…] to low as -35 degrees Celsius [ http://www.astro.uu…]. Shadowed regions appear particularly dark, while grooved structure [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] on the floor of Melas Chasma [ http://ic.arc.nasa.…] indicates successively overlapping landslides [ http://www.csc.noaa…]. In the nighttime swath, blue areas have cooled relatively quickly, indicating a composition of fine-grained dust and sand [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…].
