A NASA spokesperson called the image a "fan-made" work.
In early 2026, a photo (archived) circulated online that claimed to authentically show a blue sunset on Mars.
The earliest version of the image that Snopes could find came from a Facebook page called Echoes of Unbound Curiosity. That page shared the image on Feb. 5, 2026, with the caption:
There have been thousands of generations of humans, and you are alive to witness the first photo of a Sunset on another World.
This is a real photo of the sunset on Mars.
Postings of the image on X (archived), Instagram (archived) and Reddit (archived) got thousands of views, though some social media users speculated about the image's authenticity.
According to Gemini (archived), Google's generative artificial intelligence model, the Feb. 5 image contained SynthID, a digital watermark that Google adds to content created or generated with its artificial intelligence tools. The image did not appear in a NASA collection of authentic sunrise and sunset photos from Mars or in the agency's wider image gallery.
A spokesperson for NASA said in an emailed statement about the image:
Space enthusiasts and other image processors are often excited about raw imagery downlinked from NASA spacecraft. Sometimes it is used and altered to create fan-made works shared online. This particular product is one of those examples.
Given the above, we find the image to be fake.
We contacted the Echoes of Unbound Curiosity Facebook page to ask about the source of the image and await a reply.
NASA and the China National Space Administration are the only two space agencies that have landed rovers on the surface of Mars that operated long enough to send back quality images. (The since-disbanded Soviet Union also successfully landed a rover on Mars in 1971 but lost contact with it after 110 seconds.)
The image did not appear among releases by the CNSA from its Zhurong rover.
At the time of this writing, NASA has two rovers on the surface of Mars — Perseverance and Curiosity. Both are looking for signs of life on the Red Planet. The rovers send back images from Mars that NASA publishes on its website.
The fake image may have been inspired by an authentic photo from NASA's Pathfinder lander taken in 2005. The authentic photo showed the red, rocky surface of Mars and a blueish sun setting on the horizon — the same basic elements that appeared in the fake image.
(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, accessed via images.nasa.gov)
Sunsets on Mars appear blue because dust in the Martian sky allows blue light to filter through more readily at twilight, according to NASA.
For further reading, Snopes has previously reported extensively on claims related to both NASA and Mars.
By Laerke Christensen snopes/fact-check/
