NASA released this image showing both morning and afternoon on Mars at a site called ‘Marker Band Valley’, captured by the Curiosity rover as it left the region behind.
The rover has been exploring a feature called Mount Sharp, which stretches 5km high within Gale Crater, where the Curiosity has been since landing there in 2012.
This image gives us a brief snapshot of what it might be like to witness a day on Mars.
In this image, Curiosity is looking backwards relative to its direction of travel, capturing its own tracks and, in the distance, Marker Band Valley.
This winding area is likely the site of an ancient lake, unexpectedly discovered by the rover.
Perhaps what’s most stunning about this image is the inclusion of both morning and afternoon within the same scene, providing a glimpse of what it’s like to witness the day draw in on Mars.
The image was composed using two black-and-white panoramas captured by Curiosity, with colour added by the NASA team at a later stage.
Blue has been added to sections showing the morning scene, and yellow to parts taken in the afternoon.
The two images were captured on 8 April 2023 at 09:20 and 15:40, local Mars time.
Each panorama took 7.5 minutes to capture, and each consists of 5 individual images stitched together.
And while it may have been springtime here on Earth in the northern hemisphere, on Mars it was actually winter when these images were taken.
"Anyone who’s been to a national park knows the scene looks different in the morning than it does in the afternoon," says Curiosity engineer Doug Ellison of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who planned and processed the images.
"Capturing two times of day provides dark shadows because the lighting is coming in from the left and the right, like you might have on a stage – but instead of stage lights, we’re relying on the Sun."
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