NASA On Air: NASA’s Curiosity Sees Blue Sunset On Mars (5/21/2015)
LEAD: NASA’s Curiosity rover captured its first Mars sunset in color and indicates the sky is blue.
- This Martian sunset sequence was captured over seven minutes on April 15, 2015.
- Why is it blue?
- On Earth our sunsets are red because the molecules in the atmosphere scatter or filter out the blue wavelength light.
- On Mars the Martian dust particles permit blue light to penetrate the atmosphere more efficiently than light that is red in color.
TAG: Dust in the Martian atmosphere is common during its spring season.
For More Information
See the following sources:
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
-
Producer
- Howard Joe Witte (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
-
Video editor
- Joy Ng (USRA)
-
Scientist
- Mark Lemmon (NASA/JPL CalTech)
Release date
This page was originally published on Thursday, May 21, 2015.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:49 PM EDT.