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What does the night sky look like on Mars?
- tandr 6y ago> Night-time temperatures can drop to -900C wait, what?
- teilo 6y agoI believe that's supposed to be -90C. Clearly a typo.
- noja 6y agoYou'd expect better from Sky At Night. (Wikipedia says -143 °C, -225 °F)
- midasuni 6y agoThe 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.
- onethought 6y agoThe star link complaint seems kind of like how people must have been when telegram/power lines went up.
- galago 6y agoYeah, 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 https://uh.edu/engines/nycandwires.jpg
- perl4ever 6y agoAstronomers, 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.
- saalweachter 6y ago> ...but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion. They know what they did. (Leap seconds.)
- Uke 6y agofun fact - mars has great time zones. No silly country borders and also had them even before we had time zones on earth https://marscalendar.com/time-zones https://marscalendar.com/time-zones
- morlockabove 6y agoThe kinds of people who like building things will be less sympathetic to environmental concerns when those concerns are 'don't build that, leave the world untainted by human hand'- there's a difference between polluting by building/placing something of value somewhere and polluting as a pure stupid ugly externality. Engineer-y people might be inclined to hate the latter but not the former.
- perl4ever 6y agoThe aspect of amateur astronomy culture that discouraged me was the awful code published in Sky & Telescope back in the late 80s or early 90s. They used to have a policy that in order to be compatible with the least common denominator of their readers, they required published programs to be in BASIC. And not just BASIC, but basic BASIC, with line numbers. As far as I was concerned, it was unreadable and obsolete since about 1985. It also probably influenced me away from ever learning Forth by association. Not to mention, that when I got a book on astronomical computer algorithms, it turned out that the available implementations were in Fortran, which to my taste was as bad or worse.
- titzer 6y agoPower lines still look like garbage, IMHO. After having lived some years in Germany where they are almost universally buried (except high voltage long-haul lines), I can't stop seeing them everywhere in the US. So ugly. Every sky and scene just spoiled with rickety old third-world "oh let's just put this here for now" trash. Like a scratch right across my eyeballs.
- lovemenot 6y agoNot sure where in the USA you are looking. If it's in a seismically active region there could be factors other than cost and aesthetics. Here in Japan power lines are seldom buried for this reason.
- titzer 6y agoI've been everywhere, man.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agoAlthough there are some areas where power (and comms) cables are buried, it is overwhelmingly common in the US for them to be pole-mounted.
- dotancohen 6y agoThat was simply SEO talking. There was no other way to shoehorn a link to their Starlink webpage into the article.
- tokai 6y agoAstronomers, 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.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Retric 6y agoAccording to the astronomer I talked to, starlink has a negligible impact on professionals. Some disruption at the beginning, but fairly easy to account for. There is already plenty of man made objects that need to be accounted for like the ISS, any of which could cause an issue but it’s a tiny fraction of data that’s impacted and therefore it can be removed fairly easily. That said, amateur astronomers doing long exposure shots will likely be impacted.
- astrophysician 6y agoSimply not true, starlink will have a real impact on research (see e.g. https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increased-deployment-satellite-constellations https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increa... for the impact on LSST) and will make some science impossible to do. Ironically, amateur long exposure shots will be fine because amateur astronomy doesn’t rely on pixel-level brightnesses and you can easily subtract out streaks in a way that’s pleasing to the eye. Whether or not you think it’s justified, it’s not true to say this will not impact astronomy. Some science cases will be fine, others will be significantly impacted and still others will be SOL and impossible to do.
- Retric 6y agoSo the “Rubin Observatory is an extreme case for the sensitivity of astronomical observations to satellite constellations because of its unprecedented ability to repeatedly monitor the sky widely and deeply.” And their worried about potentially losing as little as 0.3% of pixel level data, that sounds about right. I am not saying it’s impact is meaningless, just they could offset their impact with funding, rather than it being a massive issue on it’s own.
- mhh__ 6y agoWhy do you care? I'm not concern trolling, I just worry/(am curious about) that some people have a quasi-emotional connection with Musk's companies. Trust but verify, as the saying goes.
- crazydoggers 6y agoThat would be something... especially given that absolute zero, the lowest temperature possible when matter ceases movement is -273C. It’s a funny typo. Always makes you wonder how much other stuff they get wrong that’s missed.
- holografix 6y agoThat’d be far beyond absolute zero temp of −273.15° so must be a typo.
- messe 6y agoThat’s with windchill.
- asimjalis 6y agoThis is also the main theme of the comments on the site. Is it possible that typos are comment bait?
- I-M-S 6y ago-90°C got transcribed wrong (the degree symbol as another zero)
- baxtr 6y agoF’ing AI! They ruin everything
- karimmaassen 6y ago"Feels like -900C"
- yason 6y agoAt -900 C, Kelvin is dead.
- throw8932894 6y agoIn 2021 lord Kelvin is definitely dead.
- Thaxll 6y agoI really wish we will be able to see some interesting Mars things in our lifetime...
- andi999 6y agoBlue skies on Mars..
- azernik 6y agoThey 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-sunset-look-like-on-mars/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/925/what-does-a-sunrise-su...
- BurningFrog 6y agoWe've seen tons of interesting Mars things in my lifetime! Or do you mean in person?
- Teknoman117 6y agoAh, yes, amateur astronomy on Mars. Something we'll not be able to do in my lifetime sadly.
- njanirudh 6y agoI am expecting light pollution to follow us there also
- formerly_proven 6y agoAs I understand it, habitats would need to be under some ground, and there really isn't much to do outside. So what'd be the point of lighting the surface up?
- keyle 6y agoIsn't light pollution due to bouncing off the atmosphere's content? Ipso facto, no atmo => no light pollution looking up a circled lens?
- elihu 6y agoThe article mentions dust in the atmosphere being a problem.
- azernik 6y agoMars 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.
- elihu 6y agoWell, if you don't have a bunch of pedestrians wandering around outside and people don't generally drive to the store in single-occupant vehicles, you don't really have much need for streetlamps either. Maybe at some point when the population gets large enough that you'd have imported problems from Earth like random people stealing the Martian equivalent of a CD player and catalytic converter off your rover in the middle of the night, then security lighting may be a thing. The main use I can think of for outside lighting in the short term would be people doing construction work at night. That might actually be preferred from a radiation point of view; I know Mars doesn't have much protection from radiation, but I'm not sure how much comes directly from the sun versus random ambient radiation in space. Another possible source of light pollution would be greenhouses with big windows that are lit with artificial light at night.
- hbcondo714 6y ago> You would see two moons in that sky instead of one Any pictures of this?
- Medox 6y agoThere are some videos (from pictures) of eclipses, which show both: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Kn3M2ierk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Kn3M2ierk This one more zoomed out, but only with Phobos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViiriVhIhjE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViiriVhIhjE Taking into account that the Sun itself is seen smaller than on Earth, we can already imagine the view. The main problem would be that "Phobos is one of the least reflective bodies in the Solar System, with an albedo of just 0.071.".
- nostromo 6y agoThis 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.
- tppiotrowski 6y agoSuch great highlights from Curiosity, Spirit and Opportunity woven into an enjoyable narrative. I had missed the noctilucent clouds and transit of Phobos. Now stoked for Perseverance on Feb 18th.
- Medox 6y agoI 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.
- headcanon 6y agoI can't say enough good things about Starry Night in terms of teaching me about Astronomy and the Universe early on. Being able to "go" to other star systems and see what the night sky looks like was essential for intuiting our "place" in the sky in a lot of ways, much like playing Kerbal solidified my intuition around basic orbital mechanics.
- SloopJon 6y agoI 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?
- jmholla 6y agoHave you tried out Space Engine [0]? It's a lot larger than our local neighborhood, but it uses real data. > Real celestial objects are also present if you want to visit them, including the planets and moons of our Solar system, thousands of nearby stars with newly discovered exoplanets, and thousands of galaxies that are currently known. [0]: http://spaceengine.org/ http://spaceengine.org/
- slingnow 6y agoThe answer should be: nearly exactly the same, with the exception of being able to see Earth and not being able to see Mars.
- zabzonk 6y ago"And I came to the land where the sun is a tarnished penny, where the wind is a whip, where two moons play at hot rod games" Roger Zelazny, A Rose For Ecclesiastes
- temp667 6y agoIs this serious - crawling with starlink sats? At night I'm really not noticing starlink sats even on earth. What I'm noticing is MASSSIVE light pollution. For an article about looking up with the human eye at the stars, the hit on starlink sats is so weird. Starlink is probably going to be what makes internet initially possible on marks, may even be part of the mars - earth backhaul network, probably spacex will be helping host space based observation platforms (no dust / no atmo). etc.
- mnw21cam 6y agoFrom linux/net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c: I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP to talk to the University of Mars.
- jzer0cool 6y agoIn the last few images, the passing of Phobos in front of the Sun looks like an eye.
- limeblack 6y agoIn terms of the day, Mars does not have total solar eclipses but Phobos(a moon on Mars) does have eclipses[1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyZoD7BRTtg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyZoD7BRTtg&feature=youtu.be
- holografix 6y agoI wonder if generations of humans born and raised on Mars might start adapting their eyes to blue wave lengths!
- throwawayboise 6y agoNot unless there's some sort of natural (or artificial) selection for it.
- holografix 6y agoI’m not sure why but my mind went straight to “depression”. I imagine earthlings would suffer of seasonal affective disorder from seeing a pale gray/blue sky forever and no red or yellow sun above them. Kind of like a perpetual winter
- la6471 6y agoFull of tracking cookies
- spideymans 6y ago>Depending on the time of year, you might also see an ‘Evening Star’ shining in the lavender-hued twilight – Earth, a strikingly-bright spark of silvery blue, which at its best would blaze brighter than mag. –2.5. Man, I'd love to see what Earth would look like from Mars thru an amateur telescope. I'm sure it'd be beautiful.
- saiya-jin 6y agoI would expect similar view to photos of Earth from Moon landings. I would share a tear or twenty if I ever had the chance to see it myself, either of those cases.
- fctorial 6y agoDidn't we send bots with cameras to mars?
- 4gotunameagain 6y agoDidn't you click the article to see that it has images from them?
- mnw21cam 6y agoI clicked on the article, and it showed me no images.