14 DAY TRIAL // A new series of images produced by NASA's Curiosity rover and made public by the space agency earlier this month reveal a gorgeous blue-tinged sunset on Mars.
The images, included in the short animation below, were obtained about a month ago, on April 15. At that time, the Curiosity rover was staring at the sky from inside Mars' Gale Crater, where it landed in 2012.
Now, we all know that Mars also goes by the name of the Red Planet. Hence, some might be wondering where the odd color of this sunset imaged by the Curiosity rover on April 15 came from.
Well, NASA scientists say that the shades of blue visible in the sky above Mars on the day the images were taken were due to the presence of dust in the air. In turn, the dust was there because of recent storms.
“The colors come from the fact that the very fine dust is the right size so that blue light penetrates the atmosphere slightly more efficiently,” researcher Mark Lemmon said in a statement.
Although NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars quite a while back, these images are the first color view of a sunset on this planet the robotic explorer has until now beamed back to Earth.
