A sunset on Mars is blue.

 

A sunset on Mars is blue.   

 

Mars has less than 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere.

So the sunsets on Mars appear as blue due to the way the blue light from the Sun is captured within the atmosphere of Mars.

One easy pattern to find within Draco is the asterism of the Lozenge, outlined by four stars that mark Draco’s head. These stars are Rastaban, Eltanin, Grumium, and Al Rakis — also cataloged as Beta (β), Gamma (γ), Xi (ξ), and Nu (ν) Draconis, respectively. Eltanin is the brightest of these four at magnitude 2.2 Additionally, Nu is a 5th-magnitude double star that is easy to split with binoculars or even your telescope’s low-power finder scope.

To draw the Lozenge, start at Gamma, which sits about 39° directly above Polaris in the sky around 10 P.M. CDT. Beta sits 4° north-northwest of Gamma, then move 3° north-northeast to Nu. Finally, Xi sits 3.5° northeast of Nu and 5.5° south of Gamma, where we started.