Ever wondered what a sunset on Mars might look like? Stunning images captured by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover show a red planet sunset is actually blue.
The rover captured the images on April 15 in between dust storms in Gale Crater, according to a statement from NASA.
The "blue-tinged" sky is caused by fine dust in the atmosphere, according to a statement from Mark Lemmon, a Curiosity team member from Texas A&M University in College Station.
"The colors come from the fact that the very fine dust is the right size so that blue light penetrates the atmosphere slightly more efficiently," Lemmon said in the statement. "When the blue light scatters off the dust, it stays closer to the direction of the sun than light of other colors does. The rest of the sky is yellow to orange, as yellow and red light scatter all over the sky instead of being absorbed or staying close to the sun."
The Curiosity rover posted a picture of the sunset with a T.S. Eliot quote on Twitter, "Let us go then, you and I. When the evening is spread out against the sky."
This is the first sunset captured in color by the rover, according to NASA.
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