Landscape photographs are, most of the time, fascinating. But they can be both fascinating and intriguing especially if the subject is the Earth-like rock formations on Mars. The Mars Curiosity Rover currently traversing the red planet captured another surprising image of Mars. The colored images released by NASA show landscapes that are almost similar to Earth.

NASA released colored images of Martian formations showing rocks, hills and plateaus almost similar to formations of rocks in deserts here on Earth. The mast camera aboard the Curiosity Rover, which has been roaming the planet since 2012, captured the images.

The photos showed the "Murray Buttes," a rocky region on the surface of Mars. Even scientists from NASA cannot deny the uncanny similarity of the Martian surface to the rock formations here on Earth.

"Curiosity's science team has been just thrilled to go on this road trip through a bit of the American desert Southwest on Mars," Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity rover project scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. This is because of the rocks, hills and plateaus visible on the images that the rover beamed back to Earth.

Presenting a colored image of Mars is no easy feat. Vasavada and the rover team assembled large, color photographs taken in the Murray Buttes region into a mosaic to give a bigger perspective of the area. Experts say that the buttes and mesas found on the Murray buttes were remnants from ancient sandstone eroded by winds during the formation of Mount Sharp. The enhanced images play a big role in the scientific analysis of the images taken from the red planet.

The Curiosity Rover team assembled and analyzed the images not only to produce a stunning representation of the Martian surface, but most importantly, to understand the processes involved for the current rock formations to be shaped in such ways. The wind factor as well as the chemical influence on the formation of buttes on Mars are also being investigated.

Man's Threat to the Martian Surface

Stunning images of the Martian surface are results of several planetary explorations conducted by men. But some scientists expressed their concern, stating that explorations on Mars might contaminate the water on the planet. This was expressed after more unmanned and manned missions are being planned for launch to the red planet starting 2018.

Planetary protection officers are lobbying for more research before sending humans to Mars to eliminate the chance of polluting Earth's neighboring planet.

Interesting Formations on Mars

Earlier this year, NASA released more than 1,000 images of Mars from its HiRISE camera, making the database free and available to scientists, students and even conspiracy theorists.

Because of this, scientists and enthusiast were given a pass to analyze the photographs of Mars. Many have suggested that there are undeniable Earth-like formations in some regions on the red planet, while others suggest that there were clues of extra-terrestrial remnants present and evident from the images released by NASA.

 

Tags NASA, Mars Curiosity Rover, Curiosity, rover, Mars, Martian surface, Murray Buttes, Rock formations on mars, Earth-like formations on Mars, Curiosity rover

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