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SorellaLaBefana

(343 posts)
Sat May 17, 2025, 06:40 AM Saturday

Mars: A Study in Blue (APOD)


Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited
... Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera shows weathered craters and windblown deposits in southern Acidalia Planitia. A striking shade of blue in standard HiRISE image colors, to the human eye the area would probably look grey or a little reddish...

human eyes have not gazed across this terrain, unless you count the eyes of NASA astronauts in the sci-fi novel, "The Martian," by Andy Weir. The novel chronicles the adventures of Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded at the fictional Mars mission Ares 3 landing site, corresponding to the coordinates of this cropped HiRISE frame. For scale, Watney's 6-meter-diameter habitat at the site would be about 1/10th the diameter of the large crater..

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250517.html

NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" has timed out for me on several occasions this past week—but ultimately still loads. APOD still lives!
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