What Color Is The Sky On Mars?

Earthlings are so accustomed to the way things appear on our planet that I doubt they think much about how these same objects would look on other planets.  Our colors come from the way the sunlight reflects in our atmosphere.  If we lived on a different planet which has an entirely different atmospheric make-up what would their planetary features look like?  This is an artist’s rendering of the Mars Spirit Rover, which is an unmanned exploratory vehicle we have currently on Mars.  Notice the color of the sky. 

The same would hold true for plant-life, animals and whatever else we eventually find on other planets.  Since the sun would be filtered through their atmosphere and it would be either closer to the planet or further away, it’s possible that nothing would be the same color as we are accustomed to seeing it—and it’s also possible that colors might be visible there that we have never seen before.  Another factor to take into consideration is that the sun in another galaxy might be made up of different components than our sun, and that would have an affect, as well.

 In some of the Star-Trek episodes that depict the terrain of other planets, the writers and set designers don’t seem to take these things into consideration, and they create their scenes of another planet as they would look on Earth.  Most of these scenarios are of dessert or bare mountain-like terrain with little to no plant life.  (The picture of the Mars Spirit Rover above is another example of this.)

Here’s another thought… Since the human, plant and animal life on our planet are carbon based life forms that breathe air, the same people, plant and animal life on a planet that would breathe some other element might look vastly different than our same life forms do. We have seen this in some Sci-Fi episodes and with humans reporting personal encounters with “The Grays”.  If all of these planetary features look different, than it would be safe to assume they might act differently, as well. 

 The time to start thinking about these things is now.  Every day we come a bit closer to contact with life forms on other planets.  The more we ponder our differences, the less surprised and shocked we will be when the eventual contact with other alien life forms occurs on a world-wide basis.