Sunset on Mars

Scott Beale says: "As part of their Image of the Day series, NASA posted a beautiful image of a sunset on Mars sent by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on May 19, 2005." Link

[#1 posted by djam , June 3, 2008 3:20 PM]

it took 3 years for NASA to release this picture, would they tell us if they found alians on Mars?

[#2 posted by Shawn Wolfe , June 3, 2008 3:23 PM]

ahhh, sunset over Cydonia....

[#3 posted by laffmakr , June 3, 2008 3:29 PM]

Damn, I love this photo. More than the Earth-Moon HD photo. And it has been posted before.

And DJAM, just for the record, WE are the aliens on Mars.

[#4 posted by buddy66 , June 3, 2008 3:34 PM]

"The rest is silence...."

[#5 posted by Banksynergy , June 3, 2008 3:44 PM]

Great picture. The sun being smaller makes the sky seem bigger...

...which is nice.

[#6 posted by Jake0748 , June 3, 2008 3:46 PM]

Djam - don't know if you're kidding or not, but this photo was released in 2005. They just posted it on their "picture of the day" site - http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

[#7 posted by Peaceflag2007 , June 3, 2008 3:49 PM]

Now all we need are lovers holding hands beneath it...

How long until THAT happens?

[#8 posted by haaz , June 3, 2008 3:53 PM]

This is a truly awe-inspiring photo. How many times have we dreamed of scenes such as this since we first saw "Star Wars"? All those "artist's conceptions" of what sunset on a distant world might look like -- and now, this.

Thank you, to all the scientists and people who made this possible. Thank you.

[#9 posted by ErikO23 , June 3, 2008 3:59 PM]

will somebody please invent a new and vastly more effective form of propulsion and energy production so we can hurry up and terraform Mars.

also.. i think its safe to say that we are not going to endanger any important martian life forms, so lets hurry up and start sending "seeds" of life over there to get the ball rolling.

there has got to be some kind of life form on this planet that could survive there.

[#10 posted by PopeRatzo , June 3, 2008 4:09 PM]

What a moving image. Thanks for sharing that. That humans are still capable of reaching to the stars makes me hopeful, even during this miserable time of war, greed and despoilment.

[#11 posted by Strange Quark Star , June 3, 2008 4:23 PM]

This is my favorite picture from space.

That's why I've been using it as a desktop background on all my computers for over a year now!
Try it, it really looks perfect (and the resolution is more than adequate, too).

[#12 posted by License Farm , June 3, 2008 4:33 PM]

I love the cognitive dissonance that the smaller sun evokes, not to mention the near lack of any of the atmospheric phenomena a sunset on Earth tends to have. I hope that if even I do not get a chance to ever see this sight with my own eyes in my lifetime, someone else might in that span. I plan to be watching man walk on Mars from my Barcalounger on the Moon.

[#13 posted by meehawl , June 3, 2008 5:15 PM]

Bigger version of sunset for larger screens here:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20050610a.html

[#14 posted by holtt , June 3, 2008 5:33 PM]

also.. i think its safe to say that we are not going to endanger any important [] life forms, so lets hurry up and start sending "seeds" of life over there to get the ball rolling.

I bet that's what Queen Isabella said too...

There is some serious curiosity and awe this stuff stirs up. Take a look on Twitterholic and you'll see that the new lander is now number 13! That's pretty amazing.

[#15 posted by Guesstimate Jones , June 3, 2008 5:34 PM]

Nah...that's Ely, Nevada...

[#16 posted by noen , June 3, 2008 6:05 PM]

Beautiful, just beautiful.

[#17 posted by Wickedashtray , June 3, 2008 6:14 PM]

Now all we need are lovers holding hands beneath it...

while their eyes pop like four soft grapes being crushed by a giants hand due to the vacuum......

I'm reading Greg Bears "Moving Mars" ATM. great book but ya gotta love how optimistic some of these writers are when it comes to their timelines of humans populating the solar system. According to the book we had a full blown underground city on the Red Planet by 2048.

not likely.....at all.

[#18 posted by Anonymous , June 3, 2008 8:09 PM]

So that's what an unpolluted sunset looks like.

[#19 posted by Anonymous , June 3, 2008 8:10 PM]

sunset:earth
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080320.html
p3nd

[#20 posted by Hagrid , June 3, 2008 8:13 PM]

Tunisia. 1975. Star Wars was filming Tatooine scenes. I was there.

I saw this image today and had a sense of deja vu. It totally evokes the image of Luke Skywalker with the two suns.

[#21 posted by mars , June 3, 2008 10:11 PM]

on Mars, the sunset is blue

[#22 posted by Pete Carlton , June 3, 2008 10:19 PM]

What I often think about Mars, if you were there walking around on it, is how dark it would be. You're about twice as far from the sun, so the light per area is only a quarter as bright as on the Earth. High noon on Mars is sunset on Earth. And that's an awesome picture.

[#23 posted by Takuan , June 3, 2008 10:37 PM]

who is NASA's poet laureate?

[#24 posted by misssockmonkey , June 3, 2008 10:59 PM]

It's strange to see the sun setting on another planet, that is a real photograph, not some movie image. It's striking and beautiful.

[#25 posted by Argon , June 4, 2008 3:40 AM]

[tinfoil hat] How do we know it isn't a sunrise? [/tinfoil hat]

[#26 posted by mrfitz , June 4, 2008 4:34 AM]

300 billion and all I got was this sunset photo

[#27 posted by NicoleRichieVicodinRave , June 4, 2008 9:43 AM]

That's just another Burning Man .jpeg.

[#28 posted by Anonymous , January 7, 2009 7:14 AM]

is rare say this, but, there is not another photo more beautifull than this...in the earth

[#29 posted by Marcela , February 15, 2009 6:56 PM]

Thanks Mizzy for showing me the craziest sunset eva!!!

It's Radical....