It’s Sol 1 of the Mars 2020 mission on Mars and the very first color pictures are already here! Revealed today, February 19, during a press conference at JPL these images show sneak peeks of the immediate region around Perseverance’s landing site in Jezero Crater, captured by the rover’s hazard avoidance cameras—minus the dirty dust…
Tag: color
Our First Close-up Images of Mars From Space Were Hand-Colored with Crayons. True Story.
In November 1964 NASA launched Mariner 4, the fourth of its ambitious series of robotic explorations of our three inner planet neighbors. Mariner 1 was lost during launch; Mariner 2 successfully flew past Venus; Mariner 3 failed to deploy; but on July 14–15, 1965, the 575-lb Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to fly past…
ESA Grabs Glimpses of Mars’ Groovy Moon
This animation is comprised of three images acquired by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft on Sept. 12, 2017 with its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). It shows parts of the grooved and pitted surface of Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two natural satellites. The original images were captured in greyscale; I added color based on other…
A Red Cent on a Red Planet: Curiosity’s 1909 Lincoln Penny
On March 9, 2017, NASA’s Curiosity rover took this picture with its turret-mounted MAHLI camera of the calibration target installed near the “shoulder” of its robotic arm. In addition to color chips and a metric line graph, the target also includes a U.S. coin: a 1909 Lincoln penny, adhered heads-up. Curiosity’s coin isn’t just for good luck…
The “Front” Side of Tethys
This is a color image of Saturn’s moon Tethys I made from raw images acquired by Cassini on Feb. 1, 2017 in visible-light color channels. It shows the moon’s sunlit leading side—the face that aims in the direction that it moves in its orbit around Saturn. (Click image for a larger version.) While this icy moon is…
Behold the Hidden Colors of Pluto
This newly-released picture of Pluto isn’t quite what our eyes would perceive… but then our eyes aren’t high-tech scientific imaging sensors like the ones aboard New Horizons! An enhanced-color image made from data acquired by the spacecraft’s LORRI and Ralph cameras on July 13, 2015, this view of Pluto shows the many variations in surface compositions…
Share the Pluto Love!
It’s happened! At 7:49 a.m. EDT (11:49 UTC) this morning, July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft performed its close pass of Pluto and, fourteen minutes later, its moon Charon. While we won’t receive a signal from New Horizons until about 9 p.m. tonight (and image data from the flyby won’t arrive until July 15th)…
Hyperion in Color: a Composite from Cassini’s Last Visit
Here’s a color view of Hyperion made from raw images acquired in optical wavelengths by Cassini during its flyby on May 31, 2015 – the last pass it will make by this moon during its mission. Read more about this flyby here.
This Is the First Color Image from the Surface of Venus
The surface of Venus is definitely no easy place to which to send a spacecraft. Crushing atmospheric pressures, powerful high-altitude winds amid caustic clouds of sulfuric acid, and temperatures that can soar above 880ºF (475ºC) make the next planet in a no-man’s-land for robotic spacecraft. But those challenges didn’t stop the Soviet space program from successfully putting several…
New OSIRIS Image of 67P Shows a Color Picture of a Black and White World
Many of the images we’ve been seeing of the craggy surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as incredible as they are, are still monochrome. Now Rosetta’s OSIRIS team has released a true-color image of the comet taken with it high-res science imaging instrument… but even then it’s still pretty much grey.
The Frightful Fallacy of “False Color”
I rarely ever reblog posts, but this is an excellent criticism on the term “false color” and its oft-maligned perception by the modern public, and also a support of coloration techniques used in astronomy to produce the beautiful — and scientifically valuable — space images we have all come to enjoy (and expect!) By Dr….
The Color of Rhea
If someone were to ask you today what the most heavily-cratered world in the Solar System is, you can’t go wrong with saying “why, Rhea of course!” (I don’t know why someone would ask you that, but if anyone does you can now consider yourself well-prepared.) 🙂
Lights in the Dark 