What colour is Mars ?

Question

It came to light long ago that the pics taken by Nasa, primarily for geological purposes, used false colour images, apparently for more details of rock formations and the like. The more true colour pics have not been so widely published. Nasa has admits their pics are not the correct colour, before anyone starts to say im wrong. Some of you will have been aware of it for a long time, for others maybe you havent heard.
Heres a few pages you can see what i mean about the colour.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3418147.stm
http://mars-news.de/mars/viking.html
http://www.goroadachi.com/etemenanki/mars-hiddencolors.htm
Some websites explore this more seriously than others but the fact remains. The key was the colours of the US flag, NASA logo and sundials in pics being purple or red. NASAs false colour images, released due to time constraints, have colour calibration tools (flag, emblem and sundial) which are used to recorrect colours. Its no secret, just not widely known.

welltravelledguy> who says go and look at the pics, ive been looking at them, not continuosly, for around 30 years, since viking and NASA say that the colours are wrong. So you obviously havent researched it before you tried to put down this point.

To everyone, I dont need to hear about rgb values, digital cameras using more green than blue and red. Or about Dr Alders points, the guy from NASA, who says that the colour is wrong because they use more infra red.
Ive read that stuff.

I did not mention, my question is from the viewpoint of standing on Mars

Answer 1

Its the same color earth is going to be if we keep rapping it !

Answer 2

Mars is red because there is significant iron on the planet. Iron rusts and becomes red. Iron oxide is a common red pigment. The light reflected off the surface of Mars and reflected back to earth reveals the red surface of the planet. The idea that the photos are retouched by NASA does not diminish the fact that Mars has been called "The red planet" for quite some time.

Answer 3

Yeah, and...?
Sounds like you've taken a small nugget of truth and taken it way overboard, saying that ALL of their images are the wrong color. Not so.
Go look at the Viking, Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity web pages. Find images that show the color calibration target that's on the main vehicle (for Spirt and Opportunity, it's on the rovers themselves). This is a target that has grayscale and red, green, blue patches. If those patches are the right color, so is the image -- and Mars is still mostly red. By the way, you can't properly color-correct images taken through certain filter sets that are used to enhance topological features -- they weren't shot through red, green, blue filters so you can't make them appear correct by picking a "flag color" for example.

Answer 4

Red

Answer 5

Yes this is true the lack of atmosphre makes the sun light to bright and filters need to be used so that their can se something besides a too bright reflection.that will either burn the camera tube out or just leave a blurr.
Can be readjusted jusing the photo and your photo studio adjust the colors until the flag colors are right.on your pc.

Answer 6

well it looks red to me in my telescope it looked red to the people who named it. Maybe its brownish red. Or redish brown. Or maybe its rust colored. I dont realy care its red to me because its mars the God of war and BLOOD is cool.
martians are defiantly green I saw it on Tv. Flinstones kazoo the first gay cartoon character, and we had a Zenith.
So there Im right and your wrong.

Answer 7

Look, I've seen Mars through a telescope. It was freaking red.

Answer 8

i think its red... since its called the "red planet"

Answer 9

from what i remeber from when i was last there it was still and will always be red..

Answer 10

It is in RED.