Science Art: Meridiani Water, 27 Feb 2006

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For the last of our month-of-Sputnik space art posts, here’s more imagery of the hematite plains of Mars.

This false-color infrared image from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter shows the presence of hematite – a kind of iron oxide indicating the presence of water – on a section of Meridiani Planum, about 400 kilometers northeast of where the rover Opportunity landed.

Credit: Christensen, P.R., N.S. Gorelick, G.L. Mehall, and K.C. Murray, THEMIS Public Data Releases, Planetary Data System node, Arizona State University.