Blue sunset on Mars

This stunning video of a Martian sunset was captured by the Mars Rover Opportunity. Although most movies code the Martian color scheme as red, the sunset shines blue. Find out why.

Mars is, famously, The Red Planet. The rust in the dust on its surface gives the surface a reddish-brown appearance. It vast dry, dusty expanses call to mind Earthlike deserts, in which a red-orange sun beats down on yellow sand. As a result, when we think of a Mars sunset, most think of it as blazing red.

The recent footage released by NASA shows us the exact opposite. The sun glows a cool blue as it sets in the Martian sky. It's quite an upset of perception, and it's all due to that famous red dust.

On Earth, the particles in the atmosphere scatter blue light. When a ray of light hits them, the blue wavelengths are diverted from their course and shot randomly outwards. As it moves out, it hits other air particles, and some of it scatters down to the surface of the Earth. Those standing on the surface look up into the sky, see the light that's scattered down, and say the sky is blue. Meanwhile, direct light from the sun has had all the blue wavelengths filtered out; they've been scattered all over the sky. This leaves only the wavelengths at the reddish end of the spectrum - so when people look at the sun, they see it as yellow. Towards sunset, they're looking at the sun through more filtering atmosphere, and so it grows more intensely red-yellow.

On Mars, exactly the opposite happens. The red dust in the atmosphere scatters red light, so when anyone looking around would see a reddish sky. Meanwhile, the red wavelengths are filtered out of the direct path of light from the sun, leaving light towards the bluish end of the color spectrum. Those looking at the sun will see it as blue. And very seasonal.

[Griffin]

Brilliant :) the blue makes so much sense.

[VendPrekmurec]

"red sky" appears in the evening on Earth, and blue sky in the daylight. The "color" is our "reading" (over "hardware program" - brain) of the EM waves of optic (visible) light.Red "light" (EM waves) have different nm(nano-meter) lenght of their waves; the blue one has 450–495 nm and red one 620–750 nm; blue one has better dispersion through the day, but at the sunset the blue light is partially stopped, absorbed into N2, but not with red light, which therefore mostly penetrates through N2.

[darthroden]

Its amazing how small the sun looks on Mars when it's setting.
From Mars, the sun looks approximately 50% smaller than it does on Earth.

[ArattaTube]

While Mars is a red planet, Earth is a blue planet !

[Hannodb]

You leave a light hearted comment, not thinking of it much. Then lots of people bump you comment up to the top by liking it, and then you never hear the end of it. Welcome to youtube :)

[malcolmmorin]

Translation: Aww yes, beautiful Martian sunset. But enough of that, let's talk about FUCKING MUSCLES!!

[tipoomaster]

@euanford
Yes, they have pictures...Which they stitched together in a time lapse here. Its on their official website too, unless you think they're lying.

[KingNothing]

Deck the Halls is an odd musical accompaniment choice.

[tipoomaster]

@Geniusloci69
It may appear clear but the whole planet is covered in red dust, presumably there's enough of it in the atmosphere to do this. The pictures are directly from NASA, so I'd tend to believe it.

[knrasmus]

Mars has exactly the same sun as us, we are in the same solar system

[ZotoTVChile]

Earth sky tends to be blue by day, but when twilight comes, what's his color? yellow near to red, huh? Mars is exactly the opposite thing... it's all about the way Mars atmosphere filters Sun's light

[lilityger]

@Geniusloci69 all the photos taken on mars are actually in black and white. The colours you see are added in by them later.

[tipoomaster]

@euanford
Uh, so what was the whole not "believing" it part about? I never said it was a video, its pretty clearly a time lapse.

[Astrich]

So Curiosity is on Mars right now, and the Sun is still blue. Jokes on you bud.

[TheJackkiller]

i live in holland (dutch) one time in the night i was narley sleaping and then i've seen one blue bright light flits it was no thunder everyone in my street wake up and call the police but they can't find nothing just the police go to nasa and nasa is nou busy to look what it was
one thing i know that it was it was cool

[SHELLHEAD]

the same one We have, it's just looks smaller because Mars is further away from it.

[NeOzInDaHouse]

What's the name of the background music?

[TheQoler]

SMGJohn
It's alright to have an opinion about something, but please don't attack people because of their opinions, thank you.

[darthroden]

Okay I have to ask if nobody else will: WTF is up with the Christmas Music soundtrack?

[ZotoTVChile]

his nick is "trollcommando", what do you expect? (:D)