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What does the night sky look like on Mars?

skyatnightmagazine.com

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Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#31

Post by dotancohen »

midasuni wrote: post #18
noja wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd expect better from Sky At Night. (Wikipedia says -143 °C, -225 °F)

The attack on spacex at the start - the one company that’s actually likely to put sky at night readers on Mars - took me out of it before the 900C hilarity.

That was simply SEO talking. There was no other way to shoehorn a link to their Starlink webpage into the article.

Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#32

Post by tokai »

midasuni wrote: post #18
noja wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd expect better from Sky At Night. (Wikipedia says -143 °C, -225 °F)

The attack on spacex at the start - the one company that’s actually likely to put sky at night readers on Mars - took me out of it before the 900C hilarity.

Astronomers, both amateur and professional, have a legit issue with starlink. SpaceX are even trying to mitigate the issue - because of astronomers pointing it out. So I can see nothing wrong in a magazine for hobby astronomers taking a jab at starlink.

Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#34

Post by azernik »

amelius wrote: post #19
nostromo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me appreciate our moon. How lucky we are to have a moon that is roughly the same size in the sky as the sun is -- aligned such that we occasionally get to see a perfect solar eclipse and the sun's corona with our naked eyes.

Also, it's more spherical than the moons of Mars.

Anything as big as the Moon is going to be spherical; if Mars' moons were large enough to totally eclipse the Sun, I expect they would be spherical too.

Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#35

Post by azernik »

andi999 wrote: post #15
Thaxll wrote: post #5

I really wish we will be able to see some interesting Mars things in our lifetime...

Blue skies on Mars..

They already do get a little blue: just like how at sunset and sunrise you see red near the sun on Earth, on Mars sunset and sunrise come with a bit of blue at the horizon.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/925/what-does-a-sunrise-su...

Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#36

Post by galago »

onethought wrote: post #23
midasuni wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attack on spacex at the start - the one company that’s actually likely to put sky at night readers on Mars - took me out of it before the 900C hilarity.

The star link complaint seems kind of like how people must have been when telegram/power lines went up.

Yeah, early above-ground telephone wiring was a horrible mess. This is one of those intermediate steps where the satellites are are awful. Even as they're implemented there should be a plan to get rid of them. If you search from pictures of overhead wires you can see what it was like for a while. https://uh.edu/engines/nycandwires.jpg

Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#37

Post by azernik »

keyle wrote: post #26
njanirudh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am expecting light pollution to follow us there also

Isn't light pollution due to bouncing off the atmosphere's content? Ipso facto, no atmo => no light pollution looking up a circled lens?

Mars has enough atmosphere (and dust!) that there's stuff for light to bounce off of. e.g. the article notes that the dust actually produces longer twilights than on Earth, because dust scatters more light than Earth's relatively low-dust air.

Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#38

Post by perl4ever »

onethought wrote: post #23
midasuni wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attack on spacex at the start - the one company that’s actually likely to put sky at night readers on Mars - took me out of it before the 900C hilarity.

The star link complaint seems kind of like how people must have been when telegram/power lines went up.

Astronomers, amateur or otherwise, have been complaining about "light pollution" forever. Traditionally, it's about night-time lighting on Earth that isn't shielded from transmitting light upwards.

It startled me to find (in a long ago HN thread) that people, presumably nerdy types, are not generally sympathetic to the complaints. I somehow assumed that universal lukewarm quasi-environmental feelings would mean people would go "yeah, lighting the night sky is inefficient and dumb, and astronomy makes pretty pictures" but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion.

Re: What does the night sky look like on Mars?

#40

Post by SloopJon »

Medox wrote: post #10

I remember Starry Night having the option to see the night sky from different planets. You know, in case you wanted to track the stars with a telescope, on Mars.

I pulled this up in Stellarium, and the only real difference is that you can see Phobos, Deimos, and Earth. It doesn't seem to simulate the atmosphere.

I also tried this in Gaia Sky, but I would need to tweak the settings. The faint stars are too bright, and the bright stars aren't bright enough.

Any other recommendations for exploring our neighborhood virtually?

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