This false-color infrared image from NASA's Mars Odyssey was acquired over the region of Ophir and Candor Chasma in Valles Marineris at approximately 5 degrees south latitude, 287 degrees east longitude. The image was constructed using thermal infrared imaging system filters centered at 6.3, 7.4, and 8.7 micrometers. The color differences in this image represent compositional differences in the rocks, sediments, and dust that occur in this region of Mars.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. Additional science partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and at Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL.
