A Beautiful Sunset... On Mars!

I found this on another social site (reddit.com) and had to share it here. I'm not sure where the picture came from, so I am taking it's validity at face value. But nevertheless...

Sunset on Mars!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1d902f19435d.jpg[/atsimg]

the robotic rover Spirit was deployed last month to park and serenely watch the Sun dip below the distant lip of Gusev crater. It was a tough job, but some robot had to do it. Now on Earth a red sunset is caused by two effects -- by blue light being preferentially scattered out of sunlight by oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, and by scattering off a small amount of impurities like volcanic dust. (The magnitude of the first effect was computed in one of Albert Einstein's most cited papers.) Although Mars lacks oxygen and nitrogen, it is covered in red dust frequently hoisted into the atmosphere by fast but thin winds. Analyses of images like the above photograph show that at least some Martian days are capped by a sunset significantly longer and redder than typical on Earth. For up to two hours after twilight, sunlight continued to reflect off Martian dust high in the atmosphere, casting a diffuse glow. The result helps atmospheric scientists understand not only the atmosphere of Mars, but atmospheres across the Solar System, including our home Earth.

REddit Link

-E-

Edit to add NASA link:

[edit on 22-7-2010 by MysterE]

Look how teeeeeeeeny that sun is........ very cool pic.

reply to post by hhcore


i'm just thinking where's the cacti?

nice pic

Originally posted by MysterE
I found this on another social site (reddit.com) and had to share it here. I'm not sure where the picture came from, so I am taking it's validity at face value. But nevertheless...

Sunset on Mars!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1d902f19435d.jpg[/atsimg]

the robotic rover Spirit was deployed last month to park and serenely watch the Sun dip below the distant lip of Gusev crater. It was a tough job, but some robot had to do it. Now on Earth a red sunset is caused by two effects -- by blue light being preferentially scattered out of sunlight by oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, and by scattering off a small amount of impurities like volcanic dust. (The magnitude of the first effect was computed in one of Albert Einstein's most cited papers.) Although Mars lacks oxygen and nitrogen, it is covered in red dust frequently hoisted into the atmosphere by fast but thin winds. Analyses of images like the above photograph show that at least some Martian days are capped by a sunset significantly longer and redder than typical on Earth. For up to two hours after twilight, sunlight continued to reflect off Martian dust high in the atmosphere, casting a diffuse glow. The result helps atmospheric scientists understand not only the atmosphere of Mars, but atmospheres across the Solar System, including our home Earth.

REddit Link

-E-

Edit to add NASA link:

[edit on 22-7-2010 by MysterE]

Hey MysterE,

The reddit link says it is a "sunrise" whereas the NASA link says it is a "sunset"???

So what do you think??? I guess you would have to know what direction the Spirit is facing.

Let me know, Thanks,
Tom (KC5ILU)

I'm more of a lurker than a poster however this is beautiful...

Also if this is Mars is that a sunset over an OCEAN.......?


S+F what do other people think about that being a coastline?

I could agree w/ you about that looking like a coastline, but I'm fairly certain what you are looking at is nothing more than a sea of sand.... quite devoid of life.... not even a cactus. (sorry jumpingbeanz)

reply to post by hhcore


Look again it looks like the sun is going down over distant cliffs....


second line

reply to post by tomdham


I'm gonna go with NASA on that one!

-E-

I am always "bothered" by pictures of a Martian sunset.

The best way to describe it is: Feeling like I am sitting there watching it, alone. Oh yeah, and dying like in "Total Recall"...

Doesn't mean I can't appreciate the niftyness though! And nifty it is!

One last thing, the topic REALLY reminded me of this video (sorry, in advance.):

cool pic, other than curiosity what does it matter sunrise or sunset? also, i see the cliffs, but no water so its probably not a coastline.

reply to post by MysterE


Isn't that beautiful ? Don't feel bad if not a lot of people comment. They are pretending this picture doesn't exist so they can keep circle jerking around their fantasy that it's all fake. The moon landing, the mars landing.....all of it. But seeing as this pic doesnt look like anything on earth well, they are just going to ignore that .

reply to post by MysterE


If we could get more oxygen in the place... and the atmosphere weren't so thin... we could so live outside! There must be a way, this looks so much like some desert in our Earth. Wonderful

Is there a picture in twilight? I want to see how it looks when dark.

reply to post by MysterE


Seen it before but it's still an awesome pic MysterE! Too bad it doesn't have one of those Niburu sun dog things in it though

It always bums me out when I hear that a manned mission to Mars isn't going to happen until at least the mid 2030s. After seeing this pic it kind of changed my perspective on that. We will never get to see with our own eyes what an astronaut would see. The only way we'll experience it is through pics and vids anyway. Why waste all that money on just a few to when we could get a much bigger bang for the buck with robots.

Should scrap the manned stuff until its more feasible, and pour that money into unmanned exploration. I remember hearing that a manned mission to Mars costing in excess of $200 billion, imagine what kind of unmanned exploration of our solar system we could get with that?

Such an amazing photo, and yet it seems so familiar, earth like.

Love this pic and rover!!

Spirit Rover has taken some of my favorite Mars pics in and around Gusev Crater, my favorite location on Mars.

I would love to see this in person....ahhh one can dream!

This is an older pic though, 2005.. I saw it making the rounds on FB and it was even being credited to the wrong rover and I had friends asking me if it was fake. It's real as it comes and beautiful!

I love what Curiosity has showed us so far but I will be honest and say we won't see any of the "good" stuff.

There is a rock on the ridge/edge of the foreground. about 1/4 from the left. Looks as if there are at least three wires coming from its left side. An IED? LOL!..... No really, any ideas? Probably just a photo glitch.

reply to post by MysterE


Does anyone have a higher res photo of the op Sunset on Mars pic?

I want that for my desktop.