NASA’s InSight lander has captured stunning images of sunrise and sunset on the Red Planet.

The shots were taken by a camera on a robotic arm starting around 5:30 a.m. and then again starting around 6:30 p.m on April 24th and 25th. Additionally, a camera under the lander’s deck also caught clouds drifting across the Martian sky at sunset.

NASA’s InSight lander used the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the end of its robotic arm to image this sunset on Mars on April 25, 2019, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This was taken around 6:30 p.m. Mars local time. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Justin Maki, InSight science team co-investigator and imaging lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says: “It’s been a tradition for Mars missions to capture sunrises and sunsets.

“With many of our primary imaging tasks complete, we decided to capture the sunrise and sunset as seen from another world.”

NASA’s InSight lander used its Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the spacecraft’s robotic arm to image this sunrise on Mars on April 24, 2019, the 145th Martian day (or sol) of the mission. This was taken around 5:30 a.m. Mars local time. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The images are available as both “raw” and colour-corrected versions — with the raw version making details easier to see and the corrected versions show the vista of the Red Planet as the human eye would see it. In the images, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it does when viewed from Earth — obviously because Mars is further away from our star.

This is the second time InSight has captured these daily events — with the camera taking practice shots on March 2nd and 10th.

The first mission to send back such images was the Viking 1 lander, which captured a sunset on Aug. 21, 1976. Viking 2 captured a sunrise on June 14, 1978. Since then, both sunrises and sunsets have been recorded by the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, among other missions.

Of course, InSight’s mission goes much deeper than just investigating the surface of our closest planetary neighbour. The lander contains equipment that will, in NASA’s words “measure the vitals of Mars.”

This includes taking seismic readings with the SEIS probe, an operation which has already been successful in measuring seismic activity — a so-called ‘marsquake’ — on the planet.

As Mars has been a less geologically active planet than Earth has during the history of our Solar System — lacking plate tectonics and destructive events such as plate subduction means that Mars retains a more complete record of its geological history in its core, mantle, and crust.

These features are only present on Mars because it is of sufficient size to have undergone internal heating and differentiation, the mechanism which separates these layers, whilst being small enough to have not undergone events which destroy early evidence of these processes.

NASA suspects that Mars may be the perfect candidate for this, a ‘Goldilocks’ planet.

InSight will examine the thickness, density, and structure of Mars’ interior in addition to measuring how heat escapes from the inner layers to the surface, thus getting a broader picture of planetary evolution for rocky planets.

You can read more about InSight’s wider mission exploring beneath the surface of Mars in After the Mars Landing. What Now for InSight?