The Curiosity rover captured this Martian sunset on April 15, 2015 in colors very similar to what the human eye would see. It’s not the only colors of Martian sunsets, but the eerie blue is certainly otherworldly. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M Univ.

What Sunrises & Sunsets on Mars Look Like

Sunrises and sunsets on Mars may be a little less spectacular than here on Earth, but hey, there are sunrise and sunset photos from another world! NASA spacecraft have been watching the sun go up and down on the red planet for more than 40 years. The latest views, from the InSight lander, whose primary mission is actually to study what’s beneath the surface, were just released.

“It’s been a tradition for Mars missions to capture sunrises and sunsets,” said Justin Maki, imaging lead on InSight’s science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “With many of our primary imaging tasks complete, we decided to capture the sunrise and sunset as seen from another world.”

The sunset on Mars April 25, 2019 seen by InSight. This image was color-corrected to show what it would’ve looked like to the human eye. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Here is the same April 25 sunset, without color-correction. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

And here is a color-corrected sunrise on Mars on April 24, 2019, as seen by InSight’s Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the spacecraft’s robotic arm.

From faraway Mars, the sun is about two-thirds as big as it looks from your backyard. Because Mars has only a wisp of an atmosphere — about 1 percent of what we have—there’s typically…