Phoenix Mars Lander - Day One in Living Color [1680x1050]

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These are images from the first day after landing at Vastitas Borealis, the arctic plains of the Martian North Pole.

I used Photoshop to colorize the left and top right images. The bottom right one "is an approximate-color image taken shortly after landing by the spacecraft's Surface Stereo Imager, inferred from two color filters, a violet, 450-nanometer filter and an infrared, 750-nanometer filter."

The lander will be investigating whether the site could once have supported microbial life on Mars.

For more details: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/