NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its onboard LEDs to capture a very rare nighttime shot of the Martian surface. These LEDs are typically used for illuminating shaded areas during daytime operations. The rover activated its lighting system to photograph the dark Martian landscape. This type of nighttime imaging is uncommon for the mission. The LEDs provided enough light to reveal surface details that would otherwise remain invisible in the darkness. Curiosity’s cameras depend on these built-in lights when working in shadowed regions during the day.
Curiosity took its nighttime photograph of Mars on March 6, 2026 during the 4,740th Martian day of its mission. NASA released the image this week even though it was captured almost two months earlier. The rover uses LEDs that belong to its Mars Hand Lens Imager camera system. This camera sits at the end of Curiosity’s robotic arm. The photograph was actually taken with a different camera called the Mast Camera that is mounted higher up on the rover. Scientists sometimes turn on the MAHLI lights during daytime work to brighten shadowy areas like the insides of drill holes that Curiosity makes in the Martian surface. The extra lighting helps scientists study the makeup of rocks more effectively.
The Curiosity mission recently updated its Mars drilling technique and the new approach usually creates rough dusty holes that are difficult to examine visually. But after drilling into a rock target that scientists named “Nevado Sajama” on March 6, 2026 the team noticed the drill hole walls appeared smooth enough to photograph. The team then planned a nighttime photo session to get a clear view of the hole in Nevado Sajama. Tex Kubacki discussed the nighttime photograph with PetaPixel and explained how it was taken. Kubacki serves as Mastcam Operations Lead at Malin Space Science Services which is the company that built the Mastcam and MAHLI instruments for Curiosity.
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The M-100 Right camera was chosen for working with MAHLI because it captures more detail according to Kubacki who spoke with PetaPixel. The M-100 image that was released needed 5 seconds of exposure time. Regular daylight photos taken automatically usually need only 0.015 seconds. This means the scene lit by LEDs is about 300 to 400 times darker than normal Martian daylight. Mars already gets less than half the sunlight that reaches Earth. The difference between day & night conditions equals roughly 8 or 9 stops in photography terms. Kubacki shared a research article from 2017 that explains the technical details of the Mastcam instruments on Curiosity. The complete paper contains more information than needed for this article but a table in it lists the main specifications for the M-100 Right camera.
When discussing the camera’s additional settings such as ISO & aperture, Kubacki explained that the M-100 features only exposure controls. He compared it to his Canon 7D which sits on his shelf and has three separate controls for exposure, f-stop and ISO. When he wants to capture dark nighttime scenes he increases the exposure significantly reduces the f-stop considerably & raises the ISO substantially. He then questioned how Martian photography differs from this approach. The M-100 basically provides just one exposure control. During these nighttime photographs they captured an autoexposure image that employed a pixel-counting method through multiple iterations to determine an exposure duration of 6.148 seconds. They also captured two additional images using manual exposure settings at 3 seconds and 5 seconds as backup options in case the autoexposure function did not work properly. The M-100 lacks an f-stop adjustment feature. Its aperture remains fixed at f/10. The camera also operates without a mechanical shutter mechanism. The sensor receives light continuously and employs an electronic shutter system that removes electrical charge before beginning the exposure process.
The M-100 camera lacks an ISO adjustment knob. Lead Engineer Mike Caplinger explains that ISO measures gain and the Mastcam uses a fixed gain setting that delivers optimal noise performance across the sensor’s dynamic range. According to Dr. Caplinger the M-100 operates at roughly ISO 100. The white LEDs on Curiosity provide important scientific advantages. Kubacki notes that these white-light LEDs counteract the impact of Mars’ dusty reddish sunlight and allow for better color accuracy. When capturing nighttime images with the white LED illumination the colors become even more precise.
White light LEDs eliminate the impact of dusty sunlight on color imaging because that sunlight has a reddish appearance. This makes white light LEDs at night the most dependable way to capture accurate colors without extra processing steps. The drill hole image has received additional processing and might not show true colors as a result. Certain processing methods try to minimize environmental color influences by using white balance and gray adjustments. This technique presents rocks as they would look on Earth. According to Kubacki white LEDs achieve this outcome automatically.
The lights on Curiosity may seem powerful but they are actually quite dim. According to Kubacki they are at most like lighting a few candles at the dinner table. The MAHLI LED array is much dimmer than a standard flashlight. Each of the four white light LEDs has an illumination range of 450 to 715 millicandelas. A typical candle produces about 1000 millicandelas or one candela. This new night photograph is just another impressive imaging achievement for Curiosity. At the end of last year the rover captured a beautiful postcard of Mars that combined day & night views. In 2024 Curiosity took a unique portrait of Earth as seen from the Martian surface. Sometimes Curiosity appears in photographs itself. The HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a remarkable photo of Curiosity driving across the Martian surface from hundreds of miles above the planet.
