This article was originally published in The conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com Expert Voices: OP-E and Insights.
The people of cultures worldwide have been looking at Mars since ancient times. Because it seems reddish, the red planet has been called.
The English name for the planet comes from the novels, which named him after his god of war because his color reminded them of the blood. Actually, Mars’s reddish color comes from iron oxide in the rocks and dust that covers its surface.
His blood is also red due to a mixture of iron and oxygen in a molecule called hemoglobin. Then, in a way, the old connection between the planet Mars and the blood was completely incorrect. Rest, which is a common form of iron oxide found here on Earth, also has a reddish color.
In my current investigation into exoplanets, I observe different types of planets beyond the Earth. A lot of interesting physics is dedicated to how researchers perceive the colors of the planets and stars through different types of telescopes.
Observing Mars with probes
If the images of the tasks of Mars of Rovers on its surface look closely, you can see that the majority of the planet is not purely red, but rather a brown or tan color.
The probes sent from the Earth have photos of tasks that show rocks with an oxidized color. An image of 1976 of the Viking Lander, the first spacecraft to land on Mars, shows the Martian soil covered with a layer of rusty orange powder.
Not the entire Mars surface has the same color. In the posts, their ice caps seem white. Ice thesis contains frozen water, such as the ice that we generally find on Earth, but the ice thesis is also covered by a frozen carbon dioxide layer: dry ice.
This layer of dry ice can evaporate very quickly when sunlight shines on it and grows again when it darkens. This process causes white ice caps to grow and shrink in depthing size in the Martian seasons.
Beyond visible light
Mars also gives light in colors that you cannot see with your eyes, but that scientists can measure with special cameras in telescopes.
Light can be thought or not only as a wave, but also as a current or parts called photons. The amount of energy transported by each photon is related to its color. For example, blue and violet photons have more energy than orange and red photons.
Ultraviolet photons have even more energy than photons that you can see with your eyes. These photos are in direct sunlight, and because they have so much energy, they can damage their body’s cells. You can use sunscreen to protect themselves from them.
Infrared photons have less energy than photons that can see with the eyes, and do not need special protection of them. This is how some types of night vision glasses work: they can see the light in the infrared spectrum, as well as in the visible color spectrum. Scientists can take photos of Mars in the infrared spectrum using special cameras that work almost as night vision glasses for telescopes.
The colors of the infrared image are not really how infrared light looks, because you can’t see those colors with your eyes. They are called “false colors”, and researchers add them to look at the image more easily.
When comparing the visible color image and infrared image, you can see some of the same characteristics, and ice caps are visible in both color sets.
The NASA Maven spacecraft, launched in 2013, has fair tasks with ultraviolet light, which gives scientists a different vision of Mars’s surface and its atmosphere.
Each new type of image tells scientists more about the Martian landscape. They hope to use thesis details to answer questions about how Mars formed, how long had active volcanoes, where its atmosphere comes from and if it had liquid water on its surface.
Astronomers are always looking for new ways to take photos of the telescope out of the regular visible spectrum. They can make the images use radio waves, microwave, X -rays and gamma rays. Each part of the spectrum that can use to look at an object in the space representatives, the new information they can learn from.
Just although people look at the legs since ancient times, we still have much to learn about this fascinating neighbor.
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