Sunset at Gusev Crater, Mars
24”x36” oil on canvas
NFS
This represents a merging of my two worlds, as scientist and artist. I find it interesting how alien a landscape feels when the colors are different from what we experience on Earth. On Mars, the thin, dusty atmosphere scatters red wavelengths of sunlight in all directions, resulting in a mauve Martian sky. But at sunset, as the light travels through thicker reaches of the atmosphere, the red light is scattered so much that robotic “eyes” capture a blue disk of light around the small distant sun. Knowing that, it was still challenging to create something that didn’t look more Earth-like as I painted this Martian sunset.