Mars MAVEN false colors spectral images of Martian atmosphere. Click to enaresenate at Badstronomy.
Mars MAVEN went into orbit around the Red Planet this week and has already sent back the gorgeous atmospheric data show above featuring so
many colors of Mars:
Hydrogen is the lightest element, and extends the farthest off the planet. Shown here colored blue, you can see it extends well off the planet’s surface (Mars is 6,800 kilometers—4,200 miles—across, for scale). Oxygen (in green) is heavier, and sticks closer. There isn’t much of it on Mars, and what there is comes from water and carbon dioxide. I suspect the crescent pattern is due to limb brightening; near the edge of the planet we’re looking through more atmosphere, so the oxygen emission is more apparent there.
The red panel is reflected sunlight, and you can see a brighter ring near the pole that is either from clouds—Mars has those too, though very thin—or ice. The panel on the far right is the composite of all three images, an amazing portrait of our neighbor.
Acknowledging that the Ebola epidemic sweeping Sierra Leone was worsening, officials here put hundreds of thousands more citizens under quarantine on Thursday, sealing off more than a quarter of the country and warning travelers not to get out of their vehicles in the districts under isolation.