There has been debate recently on Slashdot (and no doubt elsewhere) about the legitimacy of doctoring photos that come from NASA, specifically the Rover/Mars thing.

NASA alter their photos. It’s no secret. From the Hubble pictures we see on the TV to this latest round of wonder from Mars.

In some, nay most cases, it is legitimate alteration — shots of stars and universes far away as received by the Hubble for example would look largely boring because a lot of the light the Hubble receives is not in the viewable wavelength of the human eye.

The shots from the surface of Mars are also being altered. For, it would seem, different and less legitimate reasons. This irks me. I want to see literally how it is from that viewpoint, not some recolorised version. To NASA/JPL’s credit, they do point this fact out, and they do offer links to the raw images.

The point of this entry is to point readers to this very interesting article on what the true color of the Martian horizon/sky is, and why Earth’s is blue. A good mini-read. The second picture can be viewed far better here.

Best place to track everything that is coming back from this mission is here.