- GS TIMES STAFF
NASA’s Curiosity rover has spotted strange, colorful clouds on Mars. The image is a combination of 21 individual photographs the Curiosity rover took recently to study a strange type of wispy cloud over its Gale Crater home.
- The clouds are at their prettiest just after sunset, when the last light makes the ice crystals glow, which is why scientists call them noctilucent, or night-shining.
- NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19, 2021, the 3,063rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission.
- Actually clouds are typically found at the planet’s equator in the coldest time of year, when Mars is the farthest from the Sun in its oval-shaped orbit. But one full Martian year ago – two Earth years – scientists noticed clouds forming over NASA’s Curiosity rover earlier than expected.
About Curiosity Rover mission
- Curiosity is the largest and most capable rover ever sent to Mars. It launched November 26, 2011 and landed on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012.
- Curiosity set out to answer the question: Did Mars ever have the right environmental conditions to support small life forms called microbes?
