This false-colored Mars Odyssey image shows cooler temperatures in blue.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU
Mars is known as the red planet because of its distinctive rust color. But the red planet looks rather blue in a beautiful Mars Odyssey spacecraft image released by NASA that shows a scenery of sand dunes.
The dunes are on the northern polar cap of Mars and the statue, which was released last week, stretches over an area 30 kilometers wide. The blue and yellow colors appear from the image, which NASA titled “Blue Dunes on the Red Planet.”
It is not that Mars held its breath. The image is blue so that scientists can visualize conditions on the Martian surface. “In this false-colored image, areas with cooler temperatures are recorded in bluish hues, while warmer properties are depicted in yellows and oranges,” NASA said in a statement. The golden dunes absorbed the heat of the sun.
The image is a combination of views that Mars Odyssey cut from 2002 to 2004. NASA recently announced it in honor of the spacecraft’s 20th anniversary. NASA calls it “the longest-running Mars spacecraft in history.”
Mars controversies like Perseverance and Curiosity are certainly glamorous, but spacecraft like Mars Odyssey have for years revolved around the hard work of imaging, mapping and studying the red planet. The orbit has helped scientists track water ice on the red planet and recently took a closer look at the moons of Mars.
Odyssey got its name from Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s a fitting epic name for a long-lived spacecraft.
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