NASA Mars InSight Sunrise Sunset

NASA’s InSight lander recently captured an incredible series of sunrise and sunset images on April 24-25, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. In local Mars time, the shots were photographed starting at 5:30 a.m. and then again around 6:30 p.m. As a bonus, a camera under the lander’s deck also caught a few clouds drifting across the Martian sky at sunset. “It’s been a tradition for Mars missions to capture sunrises and sunsets. With many of our primary imaging tasks complete, we decided to capture the sunrise and sunset as seen from another world,” said Justin Maki, InSight science team co-investigator and imaging lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Read more for a video explaining why Mars has blue sunsets and additional information.



“The first mission to send back such images was the Viking 1 lander, which captured a sunset on Aug. 21, 1976; Viking 2 captured a sunrise on June 14, 1978. Since then, both sunrises and sunsets have been recorded by the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, among other missions,” according to NASA JPL.

Author

A technology, gadget and video game enthusiast that loves covering the latest industry news. Favorite trade show? Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.