Spectacular Martian Skies

Mars’ northern orange sky and horizon, seen by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander. Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

Seventeen stunning high-resolution images of the Martian atmosphere have been posted on The Big Picture: News Stories in Photographs, a photo blog by Alan Taylor that is published by the Boston Globe.

Titled “Martian Skies” the posting states: “With an amazing number of six current live probes exploring Mars (two rovers, a lander, and three orbiters), there are many thousands of images available. Only a few, however, show atmospheric phenomena. Presented here are some of the best images of Martian atmosphere (and beyond) in action.”

According to Taylor, The Big Picture, which officially launched last month, is inspired by publications like Life Magazine (of old), National Geographic, and online experiences like MSNBC.com’s Picture Stories galleries and Brian Storm’s MediaStorm, The Big Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery ? with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting.

Each entry is made up of a collection of photographs tied together through common narrative. The photography comes from many sources, and the sizes of the photographs are deliberately large.

View “Martian Skies” posting:

www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/martian_skies.html