Mars experiences 'blue' sunset!
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recorded a sequence of pictures of the sun setting on April 15, from it's location in Gale Crater on Mars.
According to a statement issued by NASA, this was the first sunset observed in colour by Curiosity. The images are captured from the left-eye camera of the rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam). Mastcam sees colour very similarly to what human eyes see, although it is actually a little less sensitive to blue than people are.
Dust in the Martian atmosphere has fine particles that allow blue light to penetrate the atmosphere more efficiently than longer-wavelength colours. That causes the blue colours in the mixed light coming from the sun to stay closer to sun's part of the sky, compared to the wider scattering of yellow and red colours. The effect is most pronounced near sunset, when light from the sun passes through a longer path in the atmosphere than it does at mid-day.
Since its August 2012 landing inside Mars' Gale Crater, Curiosity has been studying the planet's ancient and modern environments.
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