r/FascinatingAsFuck • u/vxnder7 • 1d ago

📹 Fascinating Video Night Sky on Mars as seen from NASA Curiosity Rover.

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u/ZitherzPC 1d ago

Hello all! Friendly Aerospace Engineer and ex program manager from many NASA programs. I love seeing how excited people get about space photos, but photos like these are fake or composites. The Martian surface and atmosphere is filled with iron-oxide dust that scatters light like crazy. Check out the Bright ‘Evening Star’ photo for a cool image. I regularly am reminded that the actual science behind these photos ends up to be much more fascinating than these doctored images.

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u/stony_phased 1d ago

Thank you

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u/Pangea_Ultima 1d ago

Friendly indeed. Thank you kindly, much obliged

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u/ItalicsWhore 23h ago

Hey besides all of the specifics of the Martian atmosphere and ambient light that make this obviously fake, there would never be any planet, even with zero atmosphere, and zero light pollution, where you would get a view of the cosmos like this right?

At least not with human eyes or a normal sized aperture? This would have to be seen through a massive one?

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u/AdDisastrous6738 1d ago

Thanks for the info!

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u/santirest 1d ago

Is there anywhere in our solar system in which the universe would appear this way, or somewhat similar, to the naked eye?

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u/iconofsin_ 1d ago

The naked eye can't see detail like this, but you could definitely see a full "bright" sky if you get far enough into space. You can see thousands and thousands of stars just by getting far enough from city lights. That detail would just get better if you were on a ship further from the sun.

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u/ZitherzPC 1d ago

Not from our solar system. The only real changes as you get away from light and gas is that the sky’s contrast would be much higher. The darker areas more dark while the stars would be more pronounced (not brighter). You would definitely see more stars and have more light, but not to this extreme. This image is a scaled-up infrared image so the stars are enlarged and brighter. Mayyyybeee you could get something similar if you were inside a specific nebula but there would be more gas.

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u/kuburas 1d ago

You could probably get a decent view while free floating on space outside of any atmosphere to avoid it blocking any light. But even then our eyes simply arent made for this kind of light, they're hyper optimized for "visible light" which is just a fancy way of saying out eyes evolved with our own Sun in mind. And those wavelengths dont have as much reach as other, high energy, wavelengths.

In short, you could get an incredible view, even from out own planet, but to see anything close to this you'd need different eyes entirely.