Morning and afternoon on Mars, from Curiosity rover

Morning and afternoon on Mars

Want to see what a day on Mars might look like? Then you’ll enjoy this new release from NASA. On June 13, 2023, NASA shared this colorized version of a panoramic image of the Martian landscape. The right side of the photo represents a Martian morning, while the left side is a Martian afternoon. The Curiosity rover is leaving an area of the red planet called the Marker Band Valley and took this image looking back at the region. You can see the tracks of the rover in the Martian soil.

Curiosity took the morning image on April 8 at 9:20 a.m. local time, and the afternoon image the same day at 3:40 p.m. Doug Ellison of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California planned and processed the images. Ellison said:

Anyone who’s been to a national park knows the scene looks different in the morning than it does in the afternoon. Capturing two times of day provides dark shadows because the lighting is coming in from the left and the right, like you might have on a stage. But instead of stage lights, we’re relying on the sun.

It’s currently winter on Mars, which means less airborne dust. Ellison added:

Mars’ shadows get sharper and deeper when there’s low dust and softer when there’s lots of dust.

Identifying the landscape

In the image, we see Curiosity in the foreground. The selfie captures the rover’s three antennas and nuclear power source. The white circle at bottom right is the Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD. It measures the amount of radiation it’s receiving at the surface. This measurement provides important knowledge for making sure future astronauts will be safe on the red planet.

Also in the image, Curiosity stands in the foothills of Mount Sharp. Mount Sharp is a 3-mile (5-km) high mountain inside Gale Crater. And Gale Crater is where Curiosity originally landed in 2012. Marker Band Valley is home to salty minerals, where Curiosity found evidence of an ancient lake.

Time for Curiosity to move on to its next adventure!

Bottom line: A new image from the Curiosity rover depicts morning and afternoon on Mars. The colorized image represents one day on the red planet.

Via NASA

Read more: Evidence for ancient river on Mars in new rover images