NASA's InSight Mission Captures Martian Sunrise and Sunset

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NASA's InSight Mission Captures Martian Sunrise and Sunset JPL-Cal Tech / NASA
The InSight lander, NASA's stationary, spends two years on Mars learning everything it's possible to do on the deep inside of the red planet. But it also provides us with interesting details like a daily Martian weather report and now a glimpse of what it looks like when the sun rises and sets on Mars.

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(CNN) – Stationary from NASA Insight The lander spends two years on Mars learning all he can about the deep inside of the red planet. But it also gives us interesting details like a Martian daily weather report and, now, a glimpse of what it looks like when the sun rises and sets on Mars.

The lander used the camera on his robotic arm to take photos on April 24 and 25, capturing the sunrise at the equivalent of 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm. local hour. Another camera also saw clouds in the sky at sunset.

If the sun looks especially smallit's because it's further from Mars than from Earth. This means that the sun seems to be about two-thirds the size we see on Earth.

Insight took some practice photos in March. It's a tradition that dates back to the Viking Lander 1, which took a picture of a Martian sunset in August 1976. Viking 2 had a sunrise in June 1978 and both Events were also captured by the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers.

"It's a tradition for Mars missions to capture sunrises and sunsets," says Justin Maki, Insight Co-investigator of the scientific team and head of imaging at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Once most of our imaging tasks were completed, we decided to capture the sunrise and sunset as seen from another world."

Recently, Insight also detected his first earthquake on Mars.

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