The Night Sky on Mars

Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Spirit rover settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. This time-lapse composite, acquired the evening of martian sol 590 (Aug. 30, 2005) from a perch atop "Husband Hill" in Gusev Crater, shows Phobos, the brighter moon, on the left, and Deimos, the dimmer moon, on the right. In this sequence of images obtained every 170 seconds, both moons move from top to bottom. The bright star Aldebaran forms a trail on the right, along with some other stars in the constellation Taurus. Most of the other streaks in the image mark the collision of cosmic rays with pixels in the camera.

Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the six images that make up this composite with the Pancam broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M

P_D_Timelapse_590Atxt_ld.txt


Alt tag

This image shows Phobos, represented by a white dot against a black background, moving upward from the lower middle toward the upper right corner. To the right of and above that, a much shorter row of smaller white dots represents the path of Deimos. On the lower right side, moving toward the middle, is a row of white pinpricks representing the path of the star Aldebaran. In the lower left is a label that reads: "Spirit Sol 590, August 30, 2005, Time lapse from 170 sec. time intervals."