This is a sample of the soil at the site for a Mars Polar Lander test conducted in Death Valley. The out of focus grains at the right are too close to the lens to be in focus. The sample is placed on a black anodized aluminum plate. The illumination was by the red, green, and blue LEDs in the optical head. This image is a composition from 3 monochrome images. The individual images are shown in thumbnail below. Clicking on the color name will take you to a full size view.   The UV image is mostly thermal noise.

              Red ( Full Size View)                             Green ( Full Size View)                        Blue ( Full Size View)                            UV ( Full Size View)