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A Martian Day, From Dawn to Dusk #SpaceSaturday

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover is a great gift to all of us. Only in these strange days could we miss, or skip or, or not drop our jaw in wonder at the images we can now see from one of our neighboring planes. We can even see a full Martian day to night cycle. See more from NASA:

As the sky brightens during sunrise, the shadow of the rover’s 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm moves to the left, and Curiosity’s front wheels emerge from the darkness on either side of the frame. Also becoming visible at left is a circular calibration target mounted on the shoulder of the robotic arm. Engineers use the target to test the accuracy of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, an instrument that detects chemical elements on the Martian surface.

In the middle of the day, the front Hazcam’s autoexposure algorithm settles on exposure times of around one-third of a second. By nightfall, that exposure time grows to more than a minute, causing the typical sensor noise known as “hot pixels” that appears as white snow across the final image.

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