Midnight Sun on Mars

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University, Posted on: Thursday, 24 July 2008, 06:10 CDT Download full size image

This panorama mosaic of images was taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on board NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. This mosaic documents the midnight sun during several days of the mission.

The foreground and sky images were taken on Sol 54, or the 54th Martian day of the mission (July 20, 2008). The solar images were taken between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., local solar time, during the nights of sols 46 to 56. During this period of 11 sols, the sun's path got slightly lower over the northern horizon, causing the lack of smoothness to the curve. This pan captures the polar nature of the Phoenix mission in its similarity to time lapse pictures taken above the Arctic Circle on Earth.

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