How the sun sets on other planets
US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — Sunset is one of the most beautiful phenomena in nature. Although, perhaps, we think so only because we have never seen the sunset on Uranus, Venus or Mars.
Jeronimo Villanueva, a planetologist from the NASA Space Flight Center, created a visual model of the sunset on Uranus, so that when the probe descends on this icy planet, he could interpret the chemical composition of the area by changing light.
Sunset on Uranus is a saturated azure that disappears in blue with shades of turquoise. This blue-green color comes from the interaction of sunlight with the atmosphere of the planet. When light enters the planet’s atmosphere, hydrogen, helium and methane absorb the long-wave red part of the light. The shortwave blue and green parts of the world are scattered when photons are reflected from gas molecules and other particles in the atmosphere.
To check the accuracy of his instrument, the scientist decided to simulate the sunset on other cosmic objects (Mars, Venus, Uranus, Titan, TRAPPIST-1 e). Since these celestial bodies rotate far from sunlight, during sunset, photons scatter in different directions depending on their energy and the types of molecules in the atmosphere. As a result, each object has its own unique palette of colors.
In the video, you can see the entry through the ultra-wide camera lens. The white dot represents the location of the sun.
These sky models from various space objects are now a new feature of an online tool called the Planetary Spectrum Generator. It helps scientists reproduce how light is transmitted through the atmospheres of planets, exoplanets, moons and comets in order to understand what their atmospheres and surfaces consist of.
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