Any mention of the planet Mars evokes in the minds of people living in the global information space, some pictures in red tones. Endless lifeless deserts, rocky mountains and plains, and all this is certainly red. And under the red sky. In general, Mars is called the Red Planet for a reason. However, as the photographs published the day before by NASA employees show, Mars is not only red, but, for example, blue.
An unexpected blue color turned out to be the Nili Fossa graben located in the northwest of the Isis crater. Graben is an area of the geological surface that is lowered relative to the surrounding soil and located along tectonic faults.
The images were taken with the 65-kilogram HiRISE camera (worth $ 40 million), which is equipped with the automatic research probe Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is in orbit of the fourth planet.
As noted by the American Aerospace Agency, the blue color of this area of the surface of Mars is due to the mineral jarosite, which is predominant in the graben. This, in addition to being simply beautiful, also indicates some of the features of the local volcanic system that existed sometime in the past.