My recommendation is that do not bother to try thinking too hard about Mars image colors, it's deep and ultimately unsatisfactory rabbithole, just enjoy the pictures as they are.
It is no less or more non-adjusted, all digital colors are interpretations of some sort. Of course you can also download the raws from NASA/JPL and process them yourself. But then you have to make the decisions on how to render the colors.
areo.info has some information about their own image processing pipeline for M2020/Perseverance images (the successor mission of MSL/Curiosity), with good links: https://areo.info/mars20/
Lot of that information should be applicable to Curiosity too. But on the other hand I personally think many of their renderings look pretty weird so take the info with a grain of salt?
I don't know, but note that the raw, unadjusted images are no more "authentic" than the color-adjusted ones.
Mastcam uses a Bayer RGB matrix, very similar to a consumer digital camera. Effectively, each "pixel" of the matrix has an R, G, or B color filter in front of it. I don't know the specific wavelength response of each filter, but it's likely to be very close to a high-end consumer camera.
This is different from (e.g.,) Hubble images, which (a) are captured through non-RGB filters, and (b) use long exposures far beyond what a human eye would see.
> NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed “Miraflores,” estimated to be about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, on June 11, 2026. The surrounding area includes an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons.
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity/location-map/
Is the non-adjusted color version available anywhere?
Here is another rendering of the same raw data: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nev-t/55357706514/
It is no less or more non-adjusted, all digital colors are interpretations of some sort. Of course you can also download the raws from NASA/JPL and process them yourself. But then you have to make the decisions on how to render the colors.
areo.info has some information about their own image processing pipeline for M2020/Perseverance images (the successor mission of MSL/Curiosity), with good links: https://areo.info/mars20/
Lot of that information should be applicable to Curiosity too. But on the other hand I personally think many of their renderings look pretty weird so take the info with a grain of salt?
Mastcam uses a Bayer RGB matrix, very similar to a consumer digital camera. Effectively, each "pixel" of the matrix has an R, G, or B color filter in front of it. I don't know the specific wavelength response of each filter, but it's likely to be very close to a high-end consumer camera.
This is different from (e.g.,) Hubble images, which (a) are captured through non-RGB filters, and (b) use long exposures far beyond what a human eye would see.
From https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-science-laboratory/curios...
* Data exceeding 10GB/month will be rate limited to Voyager 2 speed.