2023-06-02 17:53:36
The many colors of the red planet
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the launch of the ESA spacecraft Mars
Express The science team used the high-resolution stereo camera HRSC to present a global color mosaic of Mars that is unparalleled in the accuracy of the color information and offers an insight into the diverse composition of the rocks, sands and stubs of the surface.
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Simulated view of the HRSC color mosaic from 2500 km above the Valles Marineris rift valley along Marsquator, with locally contrast-enhanced color: Composed of red, green and blue filter mosaics, with the color band values individually stretched. |
The European space probe was launched exactly 20 years ago Mars Express
to the “red” neighboring planet of the earth. It provides important images and data from which, among other things, statements on composition and climate history can be derived. Mars Express is considered one of the most successful space missions ever sent to Earth’s neighboring planet. The German camera instrument is on board the probe High Resolution
Stereo Camera (HSRC), which was developed at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). To mark the 20th anniversary of the launch of the spacecraft, planetologists from Freie Universität Berlin have now published a new global image mosaic of Mars with surface details never seen before. The recordings of the German camera system offer an insight into the diverse composition of the surface materials of the supposedly red neighboring planet of the earth. In their totality of color information, the images are unique so far, emphasize the researchers from the Institute of Geosciences, specializing in planetology and remote sensing.
Since its launch on June 2, 2003, the space probe has been delivering Mars Express
continuous images. The data stream from the HRSC has produced a large number of new findings in recent years. The physicist Prof. Dr. Gerhard Neukum led the development of the HRSC, which is designed to perform a global mapping of Mars in color and stereo and with a high resolution of twelve meters per pixel. The HRSC was first introduced on the Russian probe Mars 96 installed, which unfortunately did not leave Earth orbit after launch and burned up in the atmosphere. But Gerhard Neukum continued, as director of the DLR Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof, he became the main advocate for the first research probe of the European Space Agency ESA, which was sent to another planet. In 2002, Gerhard Neukum became a professor at the Freie Universitt Berlin, where he set up the field of planetology and remote sensing.
For the usual surface images, the HRSC typically photographs Mars from an altitude of about 300 kilometers, about the point where the elliptical orbit of the Mars Express satellite is closest to the planet. The resulting views of the Martian surface have a spatial resolution of up to 12.5 meters per pixel and cover an area approximately 50 kilometers wide. Thanks to its four color channels (red, green, blue, infrared) and five panchromatic nadir, stereo and photometric channels, the stereo camera can display Mars not only in three dimensions, but also in color.
For the new global data product now presented, 90 individual images were used, which were taken from higher altitudes (between about 4000 and 10,000 km) above the surface of Mars and thus areas with an average width of about 2500 kilometers with a lower spatial resolution (between 200 and 800 meters). /pixel). The global view of Mars now presented has a spatial resolution of two kilometers per pixel and shows an unprecedented variety and detail of the colors on the Martian surface. At the same time, the figure provides information about the composition of the planet’s surface.
It is well known that most of the surface of Mars is reddish in color due to the high levels of oxidized iron in the dust on the surface, earning it the nickname “Red Planet”. With the new recordings or data product, it is immediately apparent that a not insignificant part of Mars is rather dark, bluish in color. In fact, these are greyish-black sands of volcanic origin that form extensive layers of dark sand on Mars, but above all have been heaped up by the wind to form imposing sand dunes or huge dune fields on the floor of impact craters. These unweathered sands are made up of dark, basaltic minerals that are also found in volcanic lava on Earth.
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