NASA's Ingenuity helicopter captures breathtaking shot of Martian sunset (photo)

By Josh Dinner published about 22 hours ago

Ingenuity snapped the shot on Feb. 22, during its 45th Red Planet flight.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter captured this photo of the sun setting on Mars on Feb. 22, 2023, during its 45th Red Planet flight. 

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter recently took to the skies for its 45th flight, traveling nearly one-third of a mile (0.5 kilometers) — and snapping a gorgeous shot of a Red Planet sunset in the process.

Ingenuity is still making short flights around Mars' Jezero Crater, continuing to gather data well beyond its operational life expectancy. Ingenuity arrived on the Red Planet aboard NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed on Jezero's floor in February 2021.

Ingenuity flew for the first time two months later, in April 2021, and was originally tasked with only a few test flights to prove its pioneering technology. However, having exceeded NASA's expectations, Ingenuity's mission expanded to serve as a scout for Perseverance, which is searching for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting samples for future return to Earth. Ingenuity has now flown a total of 46 times, with an accumulated distance of 6.3 miles (10.1 km).

Flights 45 and 46 occurred just three days apart, on Feb. 22 and Feb. 25, with a 47th flight expected any day now. Depending on the relative positions of Earth and Mars, a transmission between the two planets can take anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to reach its destination. Because of this, Ingenuity is designed to take off, fly and land on its own. Mission controllers program each flight, then must wait for data confirmation that Ingenuity has safely landed. Onboard cameras capture images used to help determine both Ingenuity and Perserverance's next steps.

Ingenuity's high-resolution color camera is angled 22 degrees below the horizon. Images relayed back to NASA from the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper are therefore primarily focused at the ground, searching for interesting geological features and potential obstacles ahead.

Occasionally, however, a sliver of Martian sky will make an appearance in one of Ingenuity's photographs, serving as a reminder that the rotorcraft is giving us a whole new perspective on the Red Planet. The helicopter captured such an image on its 45th flight, but with an even rarer subject in frame — the sun.

The photo shows the sun hanging slightly above the horizon of hilltops in the distance, caught in the process of setting on Ingenuity's 714th Martian day, or sol. The rays shining across the photograph help illuminate the rolling alien landscape of sand and rocks inside Jezero Crater, and it almost feels like a photo you could capture from a desert here on Earth. And therein lies its beauty.

These perceived similarities shape the foundation of why we explore space in the first place. That a sunset photo from a different planet can remind us so much of our own highlights the thin margin between our life-sustaining Earth and other lifeless worlds orbiting our sun and beyond. It symbolizes the very nature of Perserverance's search for ancient Martian life, and begs the question of what sunsets on what other worlds might look like — and if humanity will get to witness those someday, too.

Our first look at a Martian sunset can tell us a lot about the Red Planet’s atmosphere

NASA’s Curiosity rover captured the first hint of the Sun’s rays on Mars. This can help scientists understand more about the Martian atmosphere and its temperatures as part of a longer-term research project into clouds on the planet.

By GEORGINA TORBET
Mar 10, 2023

Image: NASA

As part of its ongoing study of Mars’ clouds, NASA’s Curiosity rover recently captured a stunning image of a Martian sunset. As the Sun sinks over the horizon, its light forms into sun rays that can be seen banding across the sky.

Technically known as crepuscular rays, this is the first time the phenomena has been imaged in such detail on Mars. And by studying the way the rays shine through the clouds, scientists can learn more about the Martian atmosphere and weather system.

Although Mars’ atmosphere is extremely thin, at just 1 percent the density of Earth’s atmosphere, it is still active and changeable. The planet experiences high winds of up to 60 miles per hour, which can pick up the fine dust particles coating much of the planet’s surface and whip them up into global dust storms. With low atmospheric pressure and considerable variation in temperatures between day and night, dynamic events like dust devils are seen regularly.

Technically known as crepuscular rays

Also due to the thin atmosphere, there are only occasional clouds in the Martian sky. With just small amounts of water vapor present in the atmosphere, the presence of clouds varies throughout the seasons. The clouds that are visible there aren’t like clouds on Earth, however, as these are composed of liquid water. On Mars, the low pressure means that clouds form from water ice or carbon dioxide (dry ice) instead.

The new images from Curiosity show clouds at a high altitude, which suggests that they are composed of carbon dioxide rather than water ice. Another image captured recently by Curiosity shows another important cloud phenomenon called iridescence. The different colors seen within the cloud can reveal information about the particles which make it up.

“Where we see iridescence, it means a cloud’s particle sizes are identical to their neighbors in each part of the cloud”

“Where we see iridescence, it means a cloud’s particle sizes are identical to their neighbors in each part of the cloud,” said Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in a statement. “By looking at color transitions, we’re seeing particle size changing across the cloud. That tells us about the way the cloud is evolving and how its particles are changing size over time.”

The two images were stitched together from 28 individual images each. They were taken by Curiosity’s Mastcam instrument, which, unlike many previous cloud observations made using the rover’s black and white navigation cameras, can capture images in color. Curiosity has been performing its survey of the clouds since January and will continue for a few more weeks.

Curiosity has previously captured other striking views of Martian weather phenomena, like the blue sunset it imaged in 2015. The color seen there is also due to the dust in the atmosphere, following a dust storm that had left dust suspended in the atmosphere. This suspended dust scatters different colors of light by different amounts, and it scatters the light in a particular direction. That results in red light being filtered out more, so what remains is the blue color seen in the Martian sky.