The spacecraft that have visited Mars as well as the fleet of scientific satellites in orbit around the planet have sent back a large number of pictures of it, but NASA has released two new truly unique images. These are photos of the Red Planet captured by the MAVEN spacecraft with the IUVS ultraviolet spectroscopy instrument. In these images, ozone in the Martian atmosphere appears crimson, while clouds and haze appear white or blue. The surface may appear green or light brown to yellow in color.
The first image was taken during the southern hemisphere summer season. One of Mars’ deepest craters, Argyre Basin, appears at lower left filled with atmospheric haze (shown here as pale pink). The deep canyons of the Valles Marineris appear in the upper left filled with clouds. The ice cap at the South Pole is visible and has shrunk from increased summer temperatures. Increased summer temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere and dust storms drive water vapor to very high altitudes, explaining MAVEN’s discovery of increased hydrogen loss from Mars at this time of year.
The second image is of the northern hemisphere of Mars and was captured when the planet was at its furthest point in its orbit from the Sun. Rapidly changing conditions at the North Pole cause abundant white clouds. The vast canyons of the Valles Marineris are highlighted in light color in the lower left, along with many craters. Ozone, which appears in a magenta (red-purple) hue, has accumulated at the North Pole during cold winter evenings. Ozone then disappears during the spring through chemical reactions with water vapor that is confined to low altitudes in the atmosphere at that time of year.
The most important discovery of the MAVEN mission so far is that the Sun is responsible for the inhospitable conditions on Mars where at night the temperature reaches as low as 140 degrees Celsius below zero and its surface is a vast desert of water to be in frozen form underground. According to the data collected by the mission the solar wind is constantly shrinking the atmosphere of the planet thus creating the extreme environment in it.
