Curiosity to Send Back Color Photos of Mars

Finally, the entire world will know whether the Red Planet is indeed red. NASA's next vehicle on Mars, rover Curiosity, is equipped with cameras that, unlike the ones fitted on the previous two vehicles, can record and send back, in color, images of Mars the likes of which we have never seen before.

The new Martian rover will be fitted with two cameras, that will work together to send back what NASA promises to be “ the surface of Mars in exquisite detail.” Together, the two cameras form the so called Mastcam.

Until now, color photos of Mars came to be not out there, but in a NASA laboratory. A sequence of exposures was taken through different color filters and then recombined to create the digital color image of the original photos.

According to the American space agency, the Mastcam is so advanced that it could, if something like this existed there, distinguish a basketball from a football at a distance of seven football fields, or to read "ONE CENT" on a penny on the ground beside the rover.

The Curiosity is the new-generation space car. Measuring 3 meters (10 feet) in length, the Curiosity will travel over the Martian dust using six wheels, just like its predecessors, going about and seeking whether conditions have been favorable for life and favorable for preserving evidence about whether life has existed there.

The rover will also be equipped with a Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) tool, which will allow it to shoot laser beams at rocks and identify the chemical elements in the target.