For two weeks in November, NASA’s Curiosity Rover took time off from it’s main mission. However, it still took a stunning video of dawn to dusk on Mars.
On November 8th, the Curiosity Rover took two black and white videos on the 4,002nd day of the mission. Instructions to record the video were part of the last set of commands beamed to Curiosity just before the start of the Mars solar Conjunction. This is a period when the sun is between the Earth and Mars.
Normally, the rover’s camera is spotting rocks, slopes, an d other hazards which are risky to traverse. Since these activities were scaled back before the Conjunction, the team recorded the 12 hours of snapshots. They were hoping to capture clouds or dust devils, which could reveal more about the planet’s weather.
However, when the images were sent back, scientists didn’t see any weather of note. Once they put the pair of 25-frame videos together, they were able to capture Curiosity’s silhouette shifting as the day moves from morning to afternoon and evening.
Image Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
