NASA rover captures 'blue sunset' on Mars

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity
has captured stunning images of the Sun
setting on the red planet, showing blue hues
of the serene sundown over the Martian
horizon.

The Sun dips to the Martian horizon in a
blue-tinged sky in images sent home to
Earth last week from Curiosity, NASA said in
a statement. The imaging was done between
dust storms, but some dust remained
suspended high in the atmosphere, Science
Daily reported. The sunset observations help
researchers assess the vertical distribution
of dust in the atmosphere.
"The colours come from the fact that the very
fine dust is the right size so that blue light
penetrates the atmosphere slightly more
efficiently," Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M
University, the Curiosity science-team
member who planned the observations, said.