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?