Blink comparison of daytime and nighttime infrared views of Gale crater

Filed under pretty pictures, animation, amateur image processing, Mars, Mars Odyssey, Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory), geology

Go Back

Blink comparison of daytime and nighttime infrared views of Gale crater

The Curiosity landing site is marked with a yellow square, just to the south of a deposit of material that is bright at night and dark during the day. This material is referred to as the "high thermal inertia unit" by the Curiosity science team.

NASA / JPL / ASU / Emily Lakdawalla

During the day, the surface of Mars are heated by the Sun, so a Mars Odyssey THEMIS daytime thermal infrared view looks similar to a visible-light view. At night, rocks retain heat better than dust, so rocky areas appear bright and dusty or sandy areas appear dark. Rock composition and texture also affects thermal inertia and the appearance of the materials at night.

More THEMIS data over Gale crater can be downloaded here. The data was originally released on July 14, 2006.

Copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about August 17, 2012