Recently there have been a few interesting Navcam pictures that show more of the Sky than the usual small stripe along the horizon.
This gives a much better impression on what the Martian Sky would actually look like for a human observer..

I wonder if anyone knows which could be this bright star at the top, right of the center, (if it is a star and not some camera artifact) in the following picture of the late evening sky over Endurance:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...0P1557L0M1.JPG

could this possibly be the earth ??

(would be easier to tell if there was a a blue-band-filtered Pancam-Version of the image :-)

However, from the known orientation of the camera and the time of day it should be possible to find out which star/planet/moon this could be ...


The same question for the bright star in the following image:

Wonderful though it would be to see the image of the earth (or even venus) in such an image, I think the one in your image is an artifact or defect. The earth and venus should be almost directly above or below the sun given the equitorial position of the Oppotunity lander. Not sure about the linked image though. That might be something. Howevera lso remember the sun is in these images and the camera is pointing at it. It would be unlikley to see something as faint as a planet, i would have thought.

Jon

one of the moons, possibly ?

actually, Spirit has already captured the earth in the morning-sky:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rove.../image-13.html

what a wonderful image

Using Starry Night Pro to view the eastern sky from Meridiani Planum at sunset, I see bright objects including Saturn, Sirius, Betelgeuse, Capella, Procyon, and Rigel.

Earth is setting after the Sun and rising before and so would only be visible in the early morning in the east. In fact, it is currently in what looks to be a spectacular conjunction with Venus (-3.4 to Earth's -2.0) - maybe they should try to get an image of that!

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