{"id":276461,"date":"2026-02-02T05:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T05:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/276461\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T05:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T05:48:09","slug":"this-photo-of-mars-at-night-is-straight-up-haunting-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/276461\/","title":{"rendered":"This Photo of Mars at Night Is Straight Up Haunting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The length of a night on Mars isn\u2019t too different from here on Earth, lasting just over 12 hours on average. Thanks to its similar axial tilt, it also experiences longer nights in winter and shorter nights during summer \u2014 but the gloom is eerie, with temperatures plummeting to as low as -100 degrees Fahrenheit near its equator. And thanks to the complete lack of artificial light, the night sky will shimmer with the usual star constellations<\/a> we\u2019ve come to know back on Earth.<\/p>\n

Technically, though, it\u2019s not a complete blackout on the Red Planet\u2019s surface at night. NASA\u2019s Curiosity Mars rover, which has been wandering the planet\u2019s deserted landscapes for almost 14 years, is outfitted with LED lights at the end of its robotic arm, allowing it to light up the seemingly endless darkness.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An image taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover shows its LED lights lighting up a hole it drilled into the surface of the rock.<\/p>\n

Case in point, a December 6 image recently featured by NASA<\/a> shows the rover\u2019s lights lighting up a hole it drilled into the surface of the rock, dubbed \u201cNevado Sajama.\u201d It\u2019s an eerie view of an alien environment, a stark reminder that the lone rover has plenty of almost complete blackness to contend with as it probes Mars for signs of ancient life.<\/p>\n

The camera, called the Mars Hand Lens Imager, is one of seventeen cameras attached to the rover, and can take true-color images at a resolution of 1,600 by 1,200 pixels. It features both UV and white LED lights, allowing it to take pictures at night.<\/p>\n

The use of the rover\u2019s lights isn\u2019t just for show. Scientists used the LEDs to illuminate areas that are otherwise \u201cdeep in shadow during the day,\u201d as NASA explains, \u201csuch as the insides of drill holes and the inlet tubes leading to instruments in the rover\u2019s belly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lights have previously been used to examine layering inside rocks to better understand their composition. However, Curiosity changed the way it drilled its holes in 2018<\/a> in light of some problems with its drill, making the new holes \u201ctoo rough and dusty to see any such details\u201d ever since.<\/p>\n

However, a hole Curiosity drilled on November 13, its 4,740th Martian day (or sol) on the planet, was deemed \u201csmooth enough to try looking for layers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The image, which was taken weeks later, allowed the team to better get a sense of the rock, which was found in a region dotted with \u201cboxwork\u201d geologic formations.<\/p>\n

These curious formations also happen to look like massive spiderwebs from space<\/a> \u2014 as if night on Mars didn\u2019t already sound terrifying enough.<\/p>\n

More on drilling on Mars: NASA Now Letting Mars Rover Drive Autonomously<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The length of a night on Mars isn\u2019t too different from here on Earth, lasting just over 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[134441,61,60,91,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-276461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-curiosity-mars-rover","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}