Bizarre Science Photos
Colors on Mars
This image provided by NASA shows an area located west of the Nili Fossae trough on Mars, one of the proposed landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory. The image was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The dark terrain is fairly featureless in some areas, whereas other parts, when zoomed in to high resolution, show ripples, sand deposits resulting from wind activity. The lighter terrain is bedrock. The green and bluish colors represent a composition rich in mafic (iron- and magnesium-rich) minerals such as pyroxene and maybe olivine, with green having the greatest concentration. The green-blue material at the upper right is mostly rock, whereas the materials in the bedforms (at left) are composed of sand. The reddish materials are composed of magnesium- and iron-rich clays, possibly formed by ancient water that altered volcanic rock. In this scenario, the polygonal texture could represent cracks formed after the clays dried. (AP Photo/NASA)











