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What gives the soil on Mars its red colour, lending our planetary neighbour its moniker the Red planet? And has Mars always been red?
Sep 27, 2024 · Mars’ surface is dominated by a red-orange tint visible from space. The colour is largely due to iron-oxide, also known as rust, which makes up the dust, rocks, and soil covering the planet. But to understand how this amount of iron-oxide formed, we must first understand the deep geological history of the planet.
Mars dazzles in the night sky with its trademark red glow, but this phenomenon is the result of a unique combination of geological and atmospheric factors. The prevalence of iron oxides in the soil, dust storms, and sunlight scattering through its carbon dioxide atmosphere all contribute to making Mars look red.
Mars has a thin atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon gases. To our eyes, the sky would be hazy and red because of suspended dust instead of the familiar blue tint we see on Earth. Mars' sparse atmosphere doesn't offer much protection from impacts by such objects as meteorites, asteroids, and comets.
The rocks and soil on the surface of Mars contain lots of iron oxide. Dust storms happen frequently, and the wind blows the dust into the thin atmosphere. This makes Mars look reddish from far away. What other colours can be found on the Red Planet? Find out in this one-minute animated video. Despite its fiery appearance, Mars is really cold.
The resulting iron oxide gives rise to the planet’s reddish color, which is why it appears red when seen from Earth. From the light that Mars receives from the Sun, its surface’s spectral properties are such that it absorbs the blue and green wavelengths and reflects the red, giving rise to a ‘red’ planet. Was Mars Always Red?
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Experiments at the Mars Simulation Laboratory of Aarhus University in Denmark show that when a mixture of magnetite powder, quartz sand, and quartz dust particles is tumbled in a flask, some of the magnetite converts to hematite, coloring the sample red. The proposed explanation for this effect is that when quartz is fractured by the grinding, certain chemical bonds get broken at the newly ...
