Phoenix's First Views With Color

By Nancy Atkinson - May 26, 2008 at 7:09 AM UTC | Missions
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Here are a couple of colorized images of Phoenix's first views of its landing site. They are a little more exciting than the black and white version, and the human eye can pick out more detail in color. This is an approximate-color image taken shortly after landing by the Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager, generated from two color filters, a violet and an infrared filter. It shows the vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars. The flat landscape is strewn with tiny pebbles and shows polygonal cracking, a pattern seen widely in Martian high latitudes and also observed in permafrost terrains on Earth. The polygonal cracking is believed to have resulted from seasonal freezing and thawing of surface ice.

Phoenix touched down on the Red Planet at 7:53 EDT yesterday in an arctic region called Vastitas Borealis, at 68 degrees north latitude, 234 degrees east longitude.

Polygonal cracks are visible in this close up image of the Mars arctic tundra. This color version was again generated using one of the first black and white image sent by Phoenix and processed with two color filters. The SSI camera on Phoenix will be calibrated with colors on the spacecraft itself in order to make sure the color images it sends back will show the "real" colors on Mars as close as possible. SSI has a 12-position color filter that ranges from optical to infrared.

Phoenix's approximate position on Mars is shown here. The red circle on the far right of the blue landing elipse is where the spacecraft is estimated to be. At the time this post is written, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has probably already passed over this area on Mars and will attempt to image the lander on the surface of Mars. We'll post that if the MRO team is successful in this difficult effort.

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NASA

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com