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American Morning
Seeing Red
Aired January 29, 2004 - 08:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad, from outer space, the Red Planet never looked so red. NASA has released the first color photos from Opportunity, taken by the rover's panoramic camera. Good looking shot, too. The pictures show a rock formation that scientists say could have been carved out by water.
Denton Ebel from the American Museum of Natural History here in New York City -- sorry about that -- with us now.
Good morning. Nice to see you doctor.
You brought some props. But before we get to that, and maybe you could even tell us, where are they getting this color red on the planet Mars? Why?
DENTON EBEL, GEOLOGIST: This is red. This is hematite, and this is pure hematite. This is this red mineral here, but these are all iron oxides. You see the wide variety of colors, but the red color is pure hematite.
HEMMER: Predominantly red here. You see shades of it in here.
EBEL: Yes.
HEMMER: This is on Earth?
EBEL: And on Earth, orange, yellow, red rocks almost always are colored by iron oxide. And on Mars, different amounts, small amounts, large amounts, cause yellows, oranges, reds, and even the chocolate brown that we're seeing in this shot.
HEMMER: As a scientist, why is that significant, or is it?
EBEL: Well, this iron oxide has been mobilized, has been transported, deposited here, deposited there, and sometimes on Earth, we even find huge crystals of pure iron oxide. This is also hematite, but when it's in large crystals, it's not red any more; it has this gray color. And this is the mineral, gray hematite, that they are looking for in this locality, and this is deposited by water.
HEMMER: You have one more rock.
EBEL: This is gypsum. Gypsum is a sulfate mineral. And this is the kind of mineral that forms in a desert where you have salts and sulfate minerals forming, such as near the oceans in the Arabian peninsula, for example. And this mineral is something we also will look for. It's the kind of thing that is left behind if you evaporate an ocean.
HEMMER: So are you saying this is confirmed, that is on Mars.
EBEL: These are not on mars. These are guesses. If we see stuff like this, there will be shouts of joy.
EBEL: But there's no confirmation that you're going to find that, right?
EBEL: No, this is the kind of thing we look for.
HEMMER: There are some who have suggested it's not red, it's actually brown.
EBEL: Well, that just means that the concentrations of iron oxide are slightly different relative to the other components, and that's what we're going to find out with this rover.
HEMMER: There is an article this week that suggested that perhaps NASA is using certain filters to change the color, make it appear to be, well let's say, I don't want to say sexed up -- but to make it look redder, almost to meet expectations. Is that possible?
EBEL: Between your eye, and the surface of mars, it's 300 million miles and lots of electronics. For example, your co-anchor's turtleneck is red. It can look lots of shades of orange to red, depending on what monitor you're watching it on. This floor is brown, but it's got a reddish tint to it. It's a lot like what we think the surface of Mars would look like in color.
But I'm sure that the mission planners and engineers have thought this through extremely carefully, and they have three different filters. They have a red, a green and blue filter. But the red filter is an infrared filter. Plus, the light coming down on the surface of Mars is filtered through the atmosphere itself, which is dust laden. And the dust in the atmosphere is red, so the red color on the surface has to take into account the reddish light that's hitting it.
HEMMER: And what a lovely red it is on, Soledad, today don't you think? it is the perfect red.
EBEL: It's beautiful.
HEMMER: It is the perfect red.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 29, 2004 - 08:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad, from outer space, the Red Planet never looked so red. NASA has released the first color photos from Opportunity, taken by the rover's panoramic camera. Good looking shot, too. The pictures show a rock formation that scientists say could have been carved out by water.
Denton Ebel from the American Museum of Natural History here in New York City -- sorry about that -- with us now.
Good morning. Nice to see you doctor.
You brought some props. But before we get to that, and maybe you could even tell us, where are they getting this color red on the planet Mars? Why?
DENTON EBEL, GEOLOGIST: This is red. This is hematite, and this is pure hematite. This is this red mineral here, but these are all iron oxides. You see the wide variety of colors, but the red color is pure hematite.
HEMMER: Predominantly red here. You see shades of it in here.
EBEL: Yes.
HEMMER: This is on Earth?
EBEL: And on Earth, orange, yellow, red rocks almost always are colored by iron oxide. And on Mars, different amounts, small amounts, large amounts, cause yellows, oranges, reds, and even the chocolate brown that we're seeing in this shot.
HEMMER: As a scientist, why is that significant, or is it?
EBEL: Well, this iron oxide has been mobilized, has been transported, deposited here, deposited there, and sometimes on Earth, we even find huge crystals of pure iron oxide. This is also hematite, but when it's in large crystals, it's not red any more; it has this gray color. And this is the mineral, gray hematite, that they are looking for in this locality, and this is deposited by water.
HEMMER: You have one more rock.
EBEL: This is gypsum. Gypsum is a sulfate mineral. And this is the kind of mineral that forms in a desert where you have salts and sulfate minerals forming, such as near the oceans in the Arabian peninsula, for example. And this mineral is something we also will look for. It's the kind of thing that is left behind if you evaporate an ocean.
HEMMER: So are you saying this is confirmed, that is on Mars.
EBEL: These are not on mars. These are guesses. If we see stuff like this, there will be shouts of joy.
EBEL: But there's no confirmation that you're going to find that, right?
EBEL: No, this is the kind of thing we look for.
HEMMER: There are some who have suggested it's not red, it's actually brown.
EBEL: Well, that just means that the concentrations of iron oxide are slightly different relative to the other components, and that's what we're going to find out with this rover.
HEMMER: There is an article this week that suggested that perhaps NASA is using certain filters to change the color, make it appear to be, well let's say, I don't want to say sexed up -- but to make it look redder, almost to meet expectations. Is that possible?
EBEL: Between your eye, and the surface of mars, it's 300 million miles and lots of electronics. For example, your co-anchor's turtleneck is red. It can look lots of shades of orange to red, depending on what monitor you're watching it on. This floor is brown, but it's got a reddish tint to it. It's a lot like what we think the surface of Mars would look like in color.
But I'm sure that the mission planners and engineers have thought this through extremely carefully, and they have three different filters. They have a red, a green and blue filter. But the red filter is an infrared filter. Plus, the light coming down on the surface of Mars is filtered through the atmosphere itself, which is dust laden. And the dust in the atmosphere is red, so the red color on the surface has to take into account the reddish light that's hitting it.
HEMMER: And what a lovely red it is on, Soledad, today don't you think? it is the perfect red.
EBEL: It's beautiful.
HEMMER: It is the perfect red.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
