This article was originally published Conversation. Publication contributed to the article of space.com Expert Voice: Odds and Insights,
People of cultures around the world have been watching Mars since ancient times. Because it appears red, it is often called red planet.
The English name for the planet comes from the Romans, who named it after its deity of war because its color reminded them of blood. In fact, the red color of Mars comes from iron oxide in rocks and dust covering its surface.
Your blood is also red due to a mixture of iron and oxygen in a molecule called hemoglobin. So in a way, the ancient relationship between Mars and blood was not completely wrong. The rust, which is a common form of iron oxides found here on Earth, is often a red color.
In my current research on exoplanets, I inspect a variety of signs from the planets beyond Earth. How many researchers of interesting physics see the colors of planets and stars through different types of telescopes.
Overview of Mars with investigation
If you look closely at the pictures of Mars taken by Rovers on its surface, you can see that most of the planets are not purely red, but more than a rusty brown or body color.
Probe sent from Earth has taken pictures showing rocks with a rusty color. A picture of 1976 from the Viking Lander, the spacecraft, to land on Mars long ago, the Martian Ground is covered with a layer of rusty orange dust.
The surface of all Mars has the same color. In the pole, its ice cap appears white. These ice caps contain frozen water, such as ice we usually find on the earth, but these ice caps are also covered with a layer of frozen carbon dioxide – dry ice.
This layer of dry ice can evaporate very quickly when the sun shines on it and grows again when it is dark. This process causes growth of white ice cap at the basis of Martian seasons and shrinking in size.
Beyond visual light
Mars also sheds light in the colors that you cannot see with your eyes but scientists can measure with special cameras on telescopes.
Light can be thought not only as a wave but also as a stream of particles called photons. The amount of energy done by each photon is related to its color. For example, blue and purple 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 photons are found directly in the sun, and because they have so much energy, they can damage the cells in your body. You can use sunscreen to protect yourself from them.
Infrared photons have less energy than photons you can see with your eyes, and you do not need any special protection from them. This is how some types of night-vision goggles work: They can see light as well as visible color spectrum in infrared spectrum. Scientists can take pictures of Mars in infrared spectrum using special cameras that act like day-to-day glasses for telescopes.
Colors on infrared pictures are not really that look like infrared light, because you cannot see those colors with your eyes. They are called “false colors”, and researchers add them to see pictures more easily.
When you compare visible color images and infrared pictures, you can see some similar features – and appear in both sets of ice cap color.
NASA’s Maven spacecraft launched in 2013 has also taken photographs with ultraviolet light, giving scientists a distinct view of both Mars and its atmosphere.
Each new type of photo tells scientists more about the martian landscape. They hope to use these details to answer questions about the formation of Mars, how long the active volcano was, where its atmosphere came from and whether there was liquid water on its surface.
Astronomers are always looking for new ways to take pictures of the bensor outside the spectrum that appears regularly. They can also make images using radio waves, microwaves, X-rays and gamma rays. Each part of the spectrum can be used to see an object in space, in which they represent new information they can learn.
Even though people have been watching Mars since ancient times, we still have to learn a lot about this attractive neighbor.
This article has been reinstated Conversation Under a Creative Commons License. read the Original article,
