Experience the Day/Night Cycle on Mars with the Curiosity Rover

As many of us are enjoying our vacation from Christmas to New Year, Curiosity rover on Mars is busy getting back to work. In November were notable events that cause NASA’s Mars missions to halt their actions briefly. The Mars solar conjunction event, which happens when the sun is directly between Earth and Mars, paused communications signals between the two planets, to avoid any risk of danger to the rovers due to garbled communication. Therefore, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers were put on hold temporarily until the solar conjunction passed

The two Hazcams of the rover, named as Hazard-Avoidance Cameras, captured the view around it while Mars solar conjunction was going on. These cameras helped the rover to avoid dangerous obstacles but don’t operate in colors and are relatively low definition. The rover took 25 images between 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. local time on November 8, which shows the progression of a Martian day.

With the Mars solar conjunction over and Curiosity now back in regular communications with Earth, the rover is back to work, exploring regions called Crescent Meadow and Sawtooth Peak, while also on the lookout for clouds and dust in the air.

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Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, Read More…