Sunset on Mars

[srobert]

Personally I would love to see sunset from one of saturns or jupiters moons.

Since Saturn is about 6x farther away from the sun on average than mars, it would also mean that the solar disk would be about 1/6th of the diameter. I guess at this distance, the sun starts to look more like a big bright star.

(Sun seen from saturn appears on average about 1/10 of the width as seen from earth)

 

[jayscheuerle]

nice

Personally I would love to see sunset from one of saturns or jupiters moons.

Interesting in theory, but the sun would really look like no more than a very bright star from that far away..

For my daughter's 3rd grade class, we made a 1000 yard scale model of the solar system with a small 8" basketball for the sun and various candies or seeds for all the planets (from malted milk ball for Jupiter to poppy seeds for Pluto and the Moon). Every kid in the class got a baggie with the planets in them. We also had stakes with scaled pictures of each of the planets on them that we planted into the ground as we marched out the solar system together. To get an idea of how big the sun would look from Jupiter, imagine the size of a bowling ball from 135 yards away. From Saturn, you'd have to be looking at it from 247 yards away! Lots of space...

When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, it was like picking out a poppy seed from 1000 yards away...

(If anyone is interested in this experiment, I've attached it.)

 

[FoxyKaye]

Yeah thank you for finding this picture. Its totally awasome to think thats a differnt plant.

It's a different planet too.

Just made it my new desktop on my new iMac - thanks for the link to the archive, too!

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Wow, that's a wild pic - I pulled it up in Photoshop and adjusted the hue to make the sky blue and it still didn't look like anything I'd ever seen on Earth. Very cool....

What I hope to see is a pic of Jupiter or Saturn from one of their moons - the scary thing is that it will probably look like all those fake ones people make in Bryce 3D

D

 

[BornAgainMac]

I would like to see the sunset from the Cydonia Face or Pyramid on Mars. The first 3 planets have the best sunset. Well Venus might not because of the climate.

 

[MongoTheGeek]

I would like to see the sunset from the Cydonia Face or Pyramid on Mars. The first 3 planets have the best sunset. Well Venus might not because of the climate.

True but the sun sets there for over a week.

 

[Eevee]

Wow, that's a wild pic - I pulled it up in Photoshop and adjusted the hue to make the sky blue and it still didn't look like anything I'd ever seen on Earth. Very cool....

What I hope to see is a pic of Jupiter or Saturn from one of their moons - the scary thing is that it will probably look like all those fake ones people make in Bryce 3D

D

Mr Anderson, I'm interested in the pic you adjusted in Photoshop. Can you post it up? Thanks.

 

[Eevee]

Truly breathtaking...thanks MacSA!

 

[jayscheuerle]

looks familiar...

 

[Eevee]

looks familiar...

Good one!

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Mr Anderson, I'm interested in the pic you adjusted in Photoshop. Can you post it up? Thanks.

I love the Star Wars one - but you forgot a few suns

D

 

[emw]

For my daughter's 3rd grade class, we made a 1000 yard scale model of the solar system with a small 8" basketball for the sun and various candies or seeds for all the planets (from malted milk ball for Jupiter to poppy seeds for Pluto and the Moon). Every kid in the class got a baggie with the planets in them. We also had stakes with scaled pictures of each of the planets on them that we planted into the ground as we marched out the solar system together. To get an idea of how big the sun would look from Jupiter, imagine the size of a bowling ball from 135 yards away. From Saturn, you'd have to be looking at it from 247 yards away! Lots of space...

Very cool! Where did you find 1000 yards to lay this out? I'm trying to think where I could go to do this with my daughter's day care class - I know they've been studying the solar system, and would find it interesting.

And to MacSA - great picture, thanks for posting!

 

[jayscheuerle]

Very cool! Where did you find 1000 yards to lay this out? I'm trying to think where I could go to do this with my daughter's day care class - I know they've been studying the solar system, and would find it interesting.

Couldn't do a straight shot, and even then only made it out to Saturn. The Sun to Jupiter covered one side of Washington Sq. Park in Philadelphia. From Jupiter to Saturn took a whole other side! (almost) At that point, I just told the kids that they'd have to run all the way around 2 sides of the park to where the Sun was for each of the next 3 planets.. I think that I was more interested in this than any of the kids!

 

[Abstract]

Cool Mars pic, though - I love the fact that at dawn and sunset its a blue tinge, but during the day its red.

D

As a physicist, I don't understand why the sunset is blue on Mars. Care to explain it?

I can't find a reason if I make the assumption that the sky on Mars is red during the day for the same reason the sky on Earth appears blue (but is actually purple...hmmmmm). I'm not at all familiar with astronomy or outer space, though, so maybe it makes sense to everyone else.

 

[emw]

As a physicist, I don't understand why the sunset is blue on Mars. Care to explain it?

I can't find a reason if I make the assumption that the sky on Mars is red during the day for the same reason the sky on Earth appears blue (but is actually purple...hmmmmm). I'm not at all familiar with astronomy or outer space, though, so maybe it makes sense to everyone else.

Well, the Earth's sky appears blue during the day because the oxygen scatters the blue light, and more red at sunset because of the "bending" of light that takes place at that angle (i.e., only the red light makes it through the atmosphere, sort of).

If on Mars, the scattering of light in the atmosphere results in a red sky (which I don't know for sure, the fact that it looks red to us is irrelevant to the color of the sky from the ground, I think) then it would seem to make sense that a similar phenomenon would make the sunset blue - that is, the red light is scattered at sunset, but due to the angle of approach of the light, only the blue light makes it through to the camera.

 

[jayscheuerle]

As a physicist, I don't understand why the sunset is blue on Mars. Care to explain it?

I can't find a reason if I make the assumption that the sky on Mars is red during the day for the same reason the sky on Earth appears blue (but is actually purple...hmmmmm). I'm not at all familiar with astronomy or outer space, though, so maybe it makes sense to everyone else.

Mars' atmosphere is much thinner than Earth's. When we look straight up towards the sun on Earth, the sky around it appears blue due to the diffraction of light from ice crystals and other dust. Only when the sun is setting (or rising) on Mars is the amount of atmosphere we're looking through thick enough to diffract light in a way that is similar to looking straight up on Earth, hence the blue!

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Very cool! Where did you find 1000 yards to lay this out? I'm trying to think where I could go to do this with my daughter's day care class - I know they've been studying the solar system, and would find it interesting.

There might be plans to set one up in Warsaw next year...and it would go right down Center Street, although it might be a bit longer than 1000 meters. I'll let you know if it happens.

D

 

[jayscheuerle]

There might be plans to set one up in Warsaw next year...and it would go right down Center Street, although it might be a bit longer than 1000 meters. I'll let you know if it happens.

D

Is it coincidence that this is taking place in Warsaw, Indiana, when Nicolas Copernicus, the astronomer who put the sun in the center of our solar system, was from Poland, which has a Warsaw of its own?

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Is it coincidence that this is taking place in Warsaw, Indiana, when Nicolas Copernicus, the astronomer who put the sun in the center of our solar system, was from Poland, which has a Warsaw of its own?

Really?!?! That's friggin great and I didn't know that. The town in named Warsaw because the county was given to General Koskiosko (Polish General) by George Washington.

Very cool, though and it might be worthy of a mention when the thing gets set up.

D

 

[runninmac]

Very nice shot its now my desktop! Its just so different/cool that you can't describe it good.