NASA’s Mars InSight lander captured a series of sunrise, sunset, and cloud images. On April 24 and 25, 2019 (the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission), Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the spacecraft’s robotic arm captured sunrise and sunsets.

Another camera, called Instrument Context Camera (ICC) beneath the lander’s deck captured drifting clouds across the Martian sky at sunset.

NASA’s Mars InSight Lander used its Instrument Context Camera (ICC) beneath the lander’s deck to image these drifting clouds on Mars at sunset. This series of images was taken on April 25, 2019, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, starting at around 6:30 p.m. Mars local time.
Sunrise on Mars (InSight image)
Sunrise on Mars (InSight image) NASA’s InSight lander used the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the end of its robotic arm to image this sunset on Mars on April 25, 2019, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This was taken around 6:30 p.m. Mars local time.
Sunset on Mars (InSight image)
Sunset on Mars (InSight image) NASA’s InSight lander used its Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the spacecraft’s robotic arm to image this sunrise on Mars on April 24, 2019, the 145th Martian day (or sol) of the mission. This was taken around 5:30 a.m. Mars local time.

NASA’s InSight Mars Lander (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport – InSight) was launched on 5 May 2018 at 11:05 UTC aboard an Atlas V-401 rocket. It traveled 483 million kilometers (300 million miles) in almost six months and successfully landed at Elysium Planitia on Mars on 26 November 2018 at 19:52:59 UTC.

It is the first outer space robotic explorer to study in-depth the “inner space” of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core. Studying Mars’ interior structure answers key questions about the early formation of rocky planets in our inner solar system – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – more than 4 billion years ago, as well as rocky exoplanets. InSight also measures tectonic activity and meteorite impacts on Mars today.

InSight’s main objective is to study the earliest evolutionary history of the processes that shaped Mars – primarily by listening for Marsquakes. But it also brought some sophisticated meteorological tools to the Martian surface

Sources

  • “InSight Captures Sunrise and Sunset on Mars” on NASA Mars website
M. Özgür Nevres

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