what could the blue stuff be?

 

Anyone ever felt it was neat the first time they drove in another state?

THIS-IS-A-PICTURE-OF-ANOTHER-FREAKING-PLANET-WITH-A-SUBSTANCE-WE-CAN'T-INDENTITFY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

So this is real color, not false color?

Given Mercury's proximity to the sun, I wonder if the crust isn't so thin that mineral deposits are visible on the surface. Mix in a few billion years of prolonged exposure to heat, and... there you are.

 

That is an absolutely beautiful image....though the universe is infinite, I always find it more interesting when Nasa chooses to focus on one of the planets in our system. To me, the baby steps are necessary before jumping out into the ocean. We need to learn all we can about the system we live in, before we go exploring others. Very neat find.

 

Well they already have a Rover vehicle for a man mission to mars. fits 2 people. Mars is teh most intriguing IMO.

 

duh... they're bubbles don't you know?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLuriQYX1SY]YouTube - Sailor Mercury Bubbles Blast[/ame]

Clearly the Japanese anime industry is light years ahead of NASA...

 

It looks like Lapis Lazulli a rare stone on earth found only in Afghanistan and Chile

 

I used lapis for the stripes in my stone sailfish "Slash"

I wonder which of the minerals actually cause the blue

 

Its the Lazurite that gives it its distinctive color :yes:

 

And I was actually hoping its was some sort of cream filling.

 

....is it water?


nah its weird though. there are so few naturally blue substances here on earth.

 

I believe FEMA had something to do with it Captain.

 

einstein thought the universe was finite but unbounded.............


just saying........

 

i guess mercury is voting obama. at least mars is firmly in the mccain camp

 

always correcting me, do you float around the site just reading my posts and correcting them? i'm gonna pull the restraining order card again if you don't knock it off!

 

Right, but there's real color and false color when it comes to space imagery, so just saying color isn't quite as informative as it should be.

It could be Lapis Lazuli, but are the conditions on Mercury conducive to its formation in the first place?

 

i thought false color was manipulated by shadows and the angle of the sun anyway?

 

That's what I mean, it wasn't specific, that's all.

So it's real color, which is great. I still think the blue is an enormous metal or mineral deposit that's simply showing on the surface. Could be Lapis Lazuli, could be something else. How much do we know about the conditions of Mercury's formation?

 

False color images are most often pictures taken in spectrums not visable to human eyes. For instance.. in order to "see" infrared, we must assign colors or intensities to the image to make it visable to our eye. Another version takes various wavelengths and isolates them via filter. This allows us to identify some elements and compounds as they reflect specific wavelengths back to us. Many of the deep space images you see are combinations of images taken in different frequencies to highlight things like gases that would invisable to the "naked" eye. Hope this helps.

 

In reference to that particular picture, then, false color cannot apply anyhow. Right?

 

Amanda, I will have to reread the article before I can "maybe" answer your question.. brb

 

ok, it's kind if ambigious, they are not really clear on which version they are showing us.

from this, It seems that the pretty blue images we are looking at are the "enhanced" version.

 

why don't you solve this for us and go hang out over there? :tongue2:

 

Venus is the nearest independent planet. We should focus more on that one.

 

Actually I believe that the perceived blue color is due to frequent volcanic activity .Lapis Lazuli is not associated with that .

Volcanic activity was very important to Earths development .The CO2 created by them was important in overcoming some of Earths Ice ages some of which were very long.

The spectrum analyzers are showing the color to be blue but if you were looking directly at it it would probably be Grey in color just like lava would look gray once it has cooled on Earth .