“This is actually a really important place. It’s a place we call Mars Hill. We first found this place about 20 years ago. In those days the only successful landing that had taken place on Mars was the two Viking Landers, and they landed in places that looked very much like this.”

 

In order to plan for the current Mars mission and to test the camera and other equipment, NASA needed a good Mars look alike. They founded at Mars Hill. 

 

“To your eyes, the main way in which Mars would look different from the scene will be the color: the color of the sky, and the color of the rocks, and the color of the soil. The colors on Mars are painted from a very narrow palette.”

 

The color palette here is based on rust, rich in iron oxides. The rocks and soil and the rusty dust are always blowing around in the freeze dried atmosphere. You won’t see any blue skies in the tour brochures for Mars. Instead, they are amber. Not only do the dust particles add a rosy blush to the sky, they also scatter sunlight in a way that turns the color of the Martian sky upside down to human eyes, red by day and blue at dawn and dusk.

 

This is a sunset as seen by Spirit, a cold blue sun dropping over a distant alien horizon. Looking up into the clear starry sky from the surface, you would see Mars’ two tiny moons, Phobos and the smaller Deimos. With all the grace of a space potato, and barely 17 miles long, Phobos has been targeted as a potential stepping stone for the first human mission to Mars.