why does mars appear blue in so many pictures if it's supposedly red?

Question

http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/sir-hubmars1.jpg

Answer 1

Most of those pictures are color enhanced. Here is a picture I took myself with a small (6 inch) telescope and I tried to NOT enhance the colors at all. This is pretty much what it looks like to my eye through the telescope. Very pale and washed out. Most people who have never seen it live in a telescope think it looks totally white the first time they see it, but there is a slight brown-red tint to it. It is like desert sand.

Answer 2

The landers and rovers that have been sent to Mars take pictures of the surface. Some of the images released during the Viking lander missions were incorrectly processed and the sky appears to be red. The most recent images from the MERs show the sky as blue because better image calibration and processing was used to give us a better idea of what the true color is.

Answer 3

Doesn't look blue to me... Also realize that the images of mars are usually taken through glass. Which often appears blue in photos.

Answer 4

The blue haze you are seeing around the edges is actually light refracting through the martian atmosphere. The dust in the atmosphere actually scatters light toward the blue end of the spectrum.

The planet itself is red as always.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/02/27/mars.sunset.ap/index.html

Hope this helps

Answer 5

reminds me of another pic i seen of some NASA folks sitting in front of the first images to come back from Mars, that sky was blue too

Answer 6

Looks red to me except for the haze at the horizons.

Answer 7

Most of it is red in that pic. Sometimes you can see it with the naked eye and it looks red. Maybe it was the light?

Answer 8

that's true, it is a red planet. Maybe some photographer want to make it more unique to attract customer

Answer 9

i think it's the same reason the sky looks blue.