At 05:04:45 UTC Mastcam Right captured this intriguing photo of Martian rocks and pebbles.
It could almost look like a group of rocks and pebbles of no particular interest, but look closely and there are plenty of surprises.
Let’s start by noting how the larger rocks have areas that are clearly dusty and areas that are so smooth and clean that they are shiny enough to reflect sunlight (white areas) and/or sky light (blue areas).
Attributing this peculiarity to wind erosion is quite difficult for me, since the shiny areas show no preferential orientation and are absent in the surrounding boulders.
Also note the presence of holes similar to those already shown in other photos, mostly in the peripheral areas.
Finally, I recommend looking closely at the boulders visible in the upper left quadrant, where you can observe boulders with shapes that are “strange” even to me. In at least three cases the shape is definitely hollow and two of them even look like fragments of a shell.
I strongly suggest you to download the image from the “options”, to get the full resolution, and to observe the photo moderately enlarged to better appreciate the morphological variety of pebbles present, I assure you that you will be amazed!
The original image is a black and white encoding of the Bayer mask that has been converted to color through a process called “debayering” or “demosaicing”. In addition, the photo has undergone noise reduction due to Jpeg compression, white balance and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation.
Original image: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02474/mcam/2474MR0131320000704414C00_DXXX.jpg
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