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THE rolling landscape of red soil is strewn with dark rocks. NASA’s brace of rovers have certainly confirmed the picture we have come to expect of Mars. But take a closer look at the images they have been sending back. Is the Red Planet really, well, quite this red?

Welcome to the latest space conspiracy theory. The soft version of the story claims that in a bid to make an ordinary-looking, brownish Mars live up to its billing, NASA has been naughtily tweaking the colours in Spirit’s digital images. The hard version has the evil NASA doctoring the colours so…

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