For more than 10 years, the Curiosity rover, sent by NASA to Mars, has been sharing stunning images of the Red Planet. The latest, published on March 6 by the US space agency, shows the sun’s rays during a sunset, but usually “particularly gloomy,” we learned in a press release.
As NASA specifies, this is the first time that these solar rays, also called crepuscular rays, have been immortalized by Curiosity. These images were taken on the sidelines of a mission carried out by the rover that concerns crepuscular clouds, their movements and their structure.
What clouds on Mars?
As CNN explains, these cloud surveys provide information about weather patterns on Mars. In fact, scientists can, from the way clouds form, estimate their atmospheric composition, as well as the temperature on the planet.
This Curiosity mission allowed, in addition to the sunset photography, to share another impressive shot, that of a set of colorful feather-shaped clouds, illuminated by sunlight.
Most of the time, most Martian clouds float no more than 60 kilometers above the ground and are made up of water ice, NASA notes.
However, the clouds in this image appear to be higher up, where it is very cold. “This suggests that these clouds are made of carbon dioxide ice or dry ice,” concludes NASA.
In February, Curiosity had also immortalized an unexpected phenomenon, traces of “wrinkles”, “the best evidence of water and waves that we have seen of the entire mission” of the robot on the Red Planet.
Source: BFM TV
