True story / No. 006Monday 5 October 2026
This sounds fake.
On Mars, the setting Sun can glow blue.
Near the setting Sun, Martian dust gives the sky an unexpected blue glow.
The part that checks out ↘
It really happened.
On 15 April 2015, NASA’s Curiosity rover photographed the Sun going down over Gale Crater, and the sky around it glowed blue. Fine dust in the Martian atmosphere lets blue light through more efficiently than redder light, so the blue stays close to the Sun while warmer colours are scattered more widely across the sky.
We read sunsets as warm. The same physics, acting on different particles, inverts the palette — the colour of a sunset belongs to the air, not the Sun.
No folklore. Actual sources.
- 1 Sunset in Mars’ Gale Crater (PIA19400)
Image, date, and the dust-scattering explanation.
jpl.nasa.gov
- 2