APOD: 2020 August 2 – Two Worlds One Sun

Good morning, Rallypoint. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is titled "Two Worlds One Sun." We like our sunsets here. What about a sunset on Mars? The sunset image on the left was taken outside of Marseille, France. The image on the right was taken by NASA's Curiosity Rover near Gale Crater in 2015. Both images were scaled to have the same angular width and then placed side by side. As suspected, the Sun from Mars looks smaller (since Mars is 50% further from the Sun than Earth). But what about the color? Scientists believe the blue sunsets on Mars believed are caused by the presence of 1% by volume of magnetite in the dust particles suspended in the Martian atmosphere. Hat tip to French photographer Damia Bouic for conceiving the idea behind this study.