Red planet turns blue in new Mars image - Sky News Australia

Updated: 06:09, Monday May 28, 2012

The Red Planet has been turned blue in a new image taken by NASA's rover perched on the edge of a 14 mile-wide crater.

The solar-powered robot, Opportunity, used its panoramic camera to capture Mars' landscape, lit-up by the late afternoon sun.

Robot snapped its own shadow in Mars image Scientists then coloured some of the picture an aqua blue tone to help show differences between various areas, including dunes on the Endeavour Crater's floor.

Rover, which has been on Mars for eight years, also snapped its own shadow in the picture which was made up of various different images.

Most were taken on March 9, 2012 - the 2,888th day that Opportunity has worked on the planet.

The machine has been studying the western rim of the crater, which is about the same size as the US city of Seattle, since arriving there in August 2011.

At the time of the picture, the rover was spending several weeks at the location to preserve energy during the winter.

It later resumed driving and is currently investigating a patch of windblown dust near its winter haven. Since landing in the Meridiani region of Mars in January 2004, Opportunity has driven about 21 miles.

NASA said Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004.

But both machines continued for years, providing bonus, extended, missions.

The robots have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favourable for supporting microbial life.

Spirit stopped communicating in 2010.

(Image courtesy of: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State University)