Photo of the Day

A blue sunset on Mars

Monday 5 October 2026

A small white sun setting over low dark hills on Mars, a blue glow around it in an otherwise dusty grey sky — Rover photograph · 15 April 2015 (sol 956)

Sunset in Gale Crater, photographed by NASA's Curiosity rover on its 956th Martian day. It was the first sunset Curiosity recorded in color, and the colors are the reverse of what we're used to.

Fun facts

Martian daytime skies are butterscotch, but the glow around the setting Sun is blue. Fine dust lets blue light through toward the Sun's direction more easily than red. source ↗
From Mars, the Sun looks about two-thirds as wide as it does from Earth. source ↗
A Martian day, called a sol, lasts 24 hours and 39 minutes. source ↗
The colors have been calibrated and white-balanced; Mastcam sees color much as a human eye does. source ↗

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M Univ.
Licence: Public domain
Source: Wikimedia Commons NASA Photojournal PIA19400