Martian Sun Rays Captured

NASA announced that its Curiosity rover has captured a rare phenomenon called “sun rays” on Mars for the first time. The footage was taken on Feb. 6 and showed the sun rays, also known as crepuscular rays, as the sun set on the planet.

This marks the first time that this phenomenon has been viewed so clearly. NASA shared a glimpse of the image on their Twitter account, showing a grey sky over a rocky black landscape with patches of red and green light visible.

The moment was captured as the rover conducted a twilight cloud survey, building on previous observations of clouds. The previous images of Martian clouds show them as being made of water ice and hovering no more than 37 miles above Mars’ surface.

The new images captured by Curiosity appear to show clouds at a “higher altitude, where it’s freezing,” suggesting that the clouds are made of carbon dioxide ice or dry ice.

One photo shows a “feather-shaped iridescent cloud” that provides scientists with information about the particle sizes within the clouds. Both photos were captured as panoramas, with each one stitched together from 28 images sent to Earth.

The images “have been processed to emphasize the highlights,” the agency said.

Curiosity’s previous cloud survey used black-and-white navigation cameras to get a detailed look at the structure of moving clouds, while the more recent survey, which began in January, uses the rover’s colour camera to see how cloud particles grow over time. The current survey will end in mid-March.

Clouds provide scientists with crucial information for understanding the weather, and they can learn more about the Martian atmosphere’s composition, temperatures, and the winds within it by looking at when and where clouds form. Curiosity’s primary mission is to determine if Mars can support small life forms known as microbes.

In the past, Curiosity has found evidence of past habitable environments on Mars, and it has found carbon, a “key life ingredient” on the planet.