Atmospheric Effects in IR Color

This image shows two representations of the same infrared image covering parts of Ius Chasma and Oudemans Crater. On the left is a grayscale image showing surface temperature, and on the right is a false-color composite made from 3 individual THEMIS bands. The false-color image is colorized using a technique called decorrelation stretch (DCS), which emphasizes the spectral differences between the bands to highlight compositional variations.
This image is dominated by atmospheric effects. The pink/magenta colors inside the canyon show areas with a large amount of atmospheric dust. In the bottom half of the image, the patchy blue/cyan colors indicate the presence of water ice clouds out on the plains. Water ice clouds and high amounts of dust do not generally occur at the same place and time on Mars because the dust absorbs sunlight and heats the atmosphere. The more dust that is present, the warmer the atmosphere becomes, sublimating the water ice into water vapor and dissipating any clouds.