Thanks to some beautiful mental imagery captured by NASA ’s Curiosity roamer during the recent Mars solar co-occurrence , you may now see the passing of a twenty-four hour period , from sunup to sunset , on the surface of Mars .
The 25 - frame video was catch from the Martian control surface using Curiosity ’s black - and - white Hazard - Avoidance Cameras ( Hazcam ) on November 8 , 2023 , from 5:30 am to 5:30 pm local time , as elaborate byNASA ’s Jet Propulsion Lab(JPL ) . The video were the last exercise set of instructions send to Curiosity before the two - week Mars solar conjunction , when the Sun is directly between Mar and Earth , imply communicating is break .
The first video , taken from the rover ’s front Hazcam , front southeast along Gediz Vallis ( Mars’svery own " Bermuda triangle " ) , a valley on Mount Sharp with an elevation of 5.5 kilometers ( 3.4 miles ) .
Thesun climb , bringing daylight to the Red Planet ’s surface . As the day commences , the shadow of Curiosity ’s machinelike weapon system and front wheel goat god across the landscape painting , before shadow starts to return . The last frame may look as if stars or snow have emerged , but this is in reality detector data noise known as “ red-hot pixels ” .
The second video ( below ) indicate the rover ’s rear Hazcam calculate down the slopes of Mount Sharp to the base of Gale Crater . You might notice that the 17th frame features a black splotch on the leftfield of the figure . signally , this is the result of a cosmic ray hitting the camera sensor .
Martian daylight , or " sols " , may look somewhat similar to days on Earth . However , Marsrotates once every 24 hours , 37 moment , and 22 minute , meaning a day is just under 40 second longer here than our planet . Martian twelvemonth are also substantially longer , with an orbit of the Sun taking around 687 Earth days .
NASA’sCuriosityrover set ashore inside Gale Crater in August 2012 . Within this vast 54 - klick ( 96 - nautical mile ) wide basin lies Mount Sharp , which Curiosity has been scaling since 2014 . It was ab initio only put to convey out a two - year mission , but the wanderer is still operating and continuing to help towards some unbelievable scientific discovery .
In October 2023 , images from the rover , together with satellite data and 3D CAT scan of layer of rocks from Earth , were used to map out the ancient geology of Mars . This suggested that the Red Planet was oncea major planet of many rivers , reinforcing the hypothesis that it once harbored extraterrestrial life ( andmaybe still does ) .
