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How dark is Mars compared to Earth in a very practical sense? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I don't care about the math and statistics. I went looking for visual comparisons, where image exposure is adjusted to show how a sunny day on both planets really compares, but I didn't find anything.

During the last partial solar eclipse in SoCal, I thought, "I wonder how close this really is to how Mars feels." It was eerie (as always) with a clear sky, and sun near noon, but feeling colder than I should (obviously Mars is FAR colder), and with dimmer light.

Our eyes have an enormous dynamic range. That is not exactly intuitive to most people. Still, I was hoping to find some way or reference that captures the experience of the sun on Mars, and really the emotional impact of what it means to stand on Mars at solar noon with human eyes.

Our pictures of Mars are all adjusted for optimal exposure, but that makes it intuitively seem very Earth like when in reality it is like a next level Neo Exo-Antarctic, even under the warmest of days under direct sunlight. What is that really like?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

This is more in line with what I was asking. The sun seems to have a psychological impact on humans. I wonder what that impact would be under both relentless cold conditions, but also when the sun never quite feels the same.

I mean, it is obviously subjective and not critical to the functioning of life or anything like that, but it just seems like one of those very subtle "death by a thousand cuts" kinds of elements that might become noticeable over time.

I don't think anyone would directly perceive the effects in a binary logic kind of way. It would be like times when our local region is covered in thin high atmospheric clouds for weeks on end. It becomes more noticeable over time that this amount of light is not normal. I wonder about that awareness of "this is not normal" having more long term impact on psychology, not profound impacts, just some impact. I thought maybe someone had already posted images somewhere on the interwebs exploring this, but haven't found any.