Mars rover's "hole in one" landing site

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

[c]The bright landing platform left behind by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover
Opportunity in 2004 is visible inside Eagle Crater, at upper right in this April 8,
2017, observation by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona[/c]

I just found this at Astronomy Now.

Stephen Clark of Astronomy Now wrote:
NASA has released the first high-resolution aerial colour image of the Opportunity rover’s landing site on a sprawling Martian plain, where the airbag-cushioned robot fortuitously rolled into a Eagle Crater in January 2004, putting its scientific instruments face-to-face with a block of sedimentary rock that gave ground teams confirmation Mars was once a warmer, wetter, and habitable planet.

Disregarding the sedimentary rock, which isn't obvious in the picture I posted, I'm interested in the colors of the picture at left. The ejecta made by the rover, at upper right, is light yellowish in color, whereas the overall color of the Martian soil where it touched down is dark grayish brown.

What is the light yellow color due to? Is it iron oxide?

By the way, check out the Astronomy Now page that I linked to in the quote, because there the image is labeled.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

Disregarding the sedimantary rock, which isn't obvious in the picture I posted, I'm interested in the colors of the picture at left. The ejecta made by the rover, at upper right, is light yellowish in color, whereas the overall color of the Martian soil where it touched down is dark grayish brown.

What is the light yellow color due to? Is it iron oxide?

HiRISE color images are not true color, as they are made by combining red, blue/green, and infrared. Also, there is no visible ejecta produced by the rover. Eagle Crater, as well as several other craters, show wind drift- a pattern of sand carried off the crater rims or from the crater depressions by the prevailing wind.

[bystander]

New Look at 2004's Martian Hole-in-One Site
NASA | JPL-Caltech | MER Opportunity | 2017 Apr 21

[c][imghover=https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/im ... _hires.jpg]https://mars.nasa.gov/imgs/2017/04/mars ... gA-br2.jpg[/imghover]MER Opportunity's Landing Hardware at Eagle Crater, Mars
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona[/c]

A new observation from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captures the landing platform that the rover Opportunity left behind in Eagle Crater more than 13 years and 27 miles (or 44 kilometers) ago.

A series of bounces and tumbles after initial touchdown plunked the airbag-cushioned lander into the crater, a mere 72 feet (22 meters) across, on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time (Jan. 24, PST).

The scene includes Eagle Crater and Opportunity's nearby parachute and backshell, from the April 10, 2017, observation by MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

This is the first color view from HiRISE of the Eagle Crater scene. ...