NASA Scientist Simulates What Sunsets Would Look Like on Venus, Mars, and Beyond

Earth, Venus, and Mars all share the same sun, but due to factors like distance and atmospheric composition, it looks different from each planet. This is especially true during sunset, when sunlight travels through more of a planet's atmosphere. Now you don't have to imagine what an extraterrestrial sunset would look like: The video below, created by a NASA scientist, shows realistic simulations of different sunsets throughout the solar system.

Planetary scientist Geronimo Villanueva from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, came up with the idea while working on a computer modeling tool for potential Uranus missions. The model helps scientists study how sunlight interacts with the atmospheres of other planets. This data can tell us a lot about a planet's chemical makeup, and as Villanueva discovered when testing the tool, it can also show us what an otherworldly sunset looks like.

After modeling a Uranian sunset, Villanueva built simulations for sky colors on Earth, Venus, Mars, and Saturn's moon Titan. In the clip below, you can see the sky domes of the eight celestial bodies, plus a hazy version of Earth. As the sun moves from horizon to horizon, the colors of each circle start to change. On Mars, for example, the sky transitions from brown to grayish blue, because the fine Martian dust particles in the atmosphere are effective at scattering blue light from the sun when it's low in the sky.

Once you've watched this simulation, check out what an eclipse would look from the surface of our planetary neighbors.