Mars Pathfinder: Sunrise on Mars

On sol 25, as the Hubble Space Telescope was preparing to take images of mars including the Pathfinder landing site, IMP watched the sunrise. This sequence of images was taken through the blue filter, and shows the sky just before sunrise continuing until the Sun rises out of the field of view. These images were taken as part of an atmospheric imaging project that was coordinated with the Space Telescope observations. They are also useful for refining our knowledge of the orientation of the landing site -- the position and timing of the sunrise give us a very good direction reference.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator.