Curiosity, NASA’s space probe, has captured images of a sunset on Mars, the US space agency announced.
It happened on February 2, when, descending above the horizon, the sun caused rays of light to illuminate a bank of clouds. These sun rays are also known as “crepuscular rays”. According to NASA, this was the “first time” that the sun’s rays were seen so clearly on Mars.
The US space agency explains that while most Martian clouds float at an altitude of no more than 60 kilometers and are composed of water ice, the clouds present in these latest images appear to be at a “lower altitude, where It’s especially cold.”
“This suggests that these clouds are made of carbon dioxide ice or dry ice,” says NASA.
In addition to the image of the sun’s rays, Curiosity captured, on January 27, a set of colored feather-shaped clouds. When illuminated by sunlight, certain types of clouds can create a rainbow-like display called “iridescence.”
“Iridescence means that the sizes of the particles in a cloud are identical to their neighbors in every part of the cloud,” said Mark Lemmon, a scientist at the Institute for Space Sciences in Boulder, Colorado. quoted in press release. “By looking at the color transitions, we see that the size of the particles change in the cloud. This helps us understand how the cloud evolves and how its particles change in size over time.”
Source: TSF
