Mars Movie: I'm Dreaming of a Blue Sunset

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2010-427 Dec. 22, 2010

Mars Movie: I'm Dreaming of a Blue Sunset

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-427&cid=release_2010-427

A new Mars movie clip gives us a rover's-eye view of a bluish Martian sunset, while another clip
shows the silhouette of the moon Phobos passing in front of the sun.

America's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, carefully guided by researchers with an artistic
sense, has recorded images used in the simulated movies.

These holiday treats from the rover's panoramic camera, or Pancam, offer travel fans a view
akin to standing on Mars and watching the sky. The movies are online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20101222.html .

"These visualizations of an alien sunset show what it must have looked like for Opportunity, in a
way we rarely get to see, with motion," said rover science team member Mark Lemmon of
Texas A&M University, College Station. Dust particles make the Martian sky appear reddish and
create a bluish glow around the sun.

Lemmon worked with Pancam Lead Scientist Jim Bell, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., to plot
the shots and make the moving-picture simulation from images taken several seconds apart in
both sequences.

The sunset movie, combining exposures taken Nov. 4 and Nov. 5, 2010, through different
camera filters, accelerates about 17 minutes of sunset into a 30-second simulation. One of the
filters is specifically used to look at the sun. Two other filters used for these shots provide color
information. The rover team has taken Pancam images of sunsets on several previous
occasions, gaining scientifically valuable information about the variability of dust in the lower
atmosphere. The new clip is the longest sunset movie from Mars ever produced, taking
advantage of adequate solar energy currently available to Opportunity.

The two Martian moons are too small to fully cover the face of the sun, as seen from the surface
of Mars, so these events -- called transits or partial eclipses -- look quite different from a solar
eclipse seen on Earth. Bell and Lemmon chose a transit by Phobos shortly before the Mars
sunset on Nov. 9, 2010, for a set of Pancam exposures taken four seconds apart and combined
into the new, 30-second, eclipse movie. Scientifically, images years apart that show Phobos'
exact position relative to the sun at an exact moment in time aid studies of slight changes in the
moon's orbit. This, in turn, adds information about the interior of Mars.

The world has gained from these movies and from more than a quarter million other images
from Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, since they landed on Mars in January 2004. Those gains go
beyond the facts provided for science.

Bell said, "For nearly seven years now, we've been using the cameras on Spirit and Opportunity
to help us experience Mars as if we were there, viewing these spectacular vistas for ourselves.
Whether it's seeing glorious sunsets and eclipses like these, or the many different and lovely
sandy and rocky landscapes that we've driven through over the years, we are all truly exploring
Mars through the lenses of our hardy robotic emissaries.

"It reminds me of a favorite quote from French author Marcel Proust: 'The real voyage of
discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes,'" he added.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. For more information about the mission, see
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .

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