NASA’s Curiosity Rover Captures a Martian Day, From Dawn to Dusk

Videos from the rover reveal its shadow crossing the Martian surface area throughout a 12-hour series while Curiosity stayed parked.

When NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover isn’t on the relocation, it works quite well as a sundial, as seen in 2 black-and-white videos taped on Nov. 8, the 4,002 nd Martian day, or sol, of the objective. The rover caught its own shadow moving throughout the surface area of Mars utilizing its black-and-white Hazard-Avoidance Cameras, or Hazcams.

Guidelines to tape the videos belonged to the last set of commands beamed as much as Curiosity prior to the start of Mars solar combinationa duration when the Sun is in between Earth and Mars. Due to the fact that plasma from the Sun can hinder radio interactions, objectives hold back on sending out commands to Mars spacecraft for a number of weeks throughout this time. (The objectives weren’t absolutely out of contact: They still radioed back routine health check-ins throughout combination.)

Rover motorists usually depend on Curiosity’s Hazcams to identify rocks, slopes, and other risks that might be dangerous to pass through. Since the rover’s other activities were deliberately scaled back simply prior to combination, the group deci