New photographs captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover present colourful clouds within the sky over Mars.
The pictures had been captured by the rover’s Mastcam, which NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in comparison with the rover’s eyes. The clouds had been noticed on Jan. 17, and the images had been taken over the course of 16 minutes, the house company mentioned in a information launch.
The clouds, generally known as noctilucent or twilight clouds, comprise frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice. They’re tinted with colours when the setting Solar scatters mild. That shade has led to them being nicknamed “mother-of-pearl” clouds.
Whereas Mars’ ambiance is 95% carbon dioxide, few of its clouds are at a excessive sufficient ambiance and low sufficient temperature to comprise frozen carbon dioxide. Most clouds on the planet are manufactured from water ice. The clouds photographed by Curiosity are at an altitude of 37 to 50 miles above the planet’s floor. Different photographs present the clouds as white plumes falling by the ambiance, earlier than evaporating about 31 miles above Mars.
The twilight clouds have solely been noticed in some areas of Mars’ southern hemisphere. NASA’s Perseverance Rover, which landed on Mars’ northern hemisphere in 2021, has not seen the clouds because it landed, however Curiosity has seen them within the southern hemisphere in 4 completely different Mars years.
Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the House Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, advised NASA that he believes sure areas of the planet usually tend to type the clouds. Gravity waves, which cool a planet’s ambiance, could possibly be an element, he mentioned.
“Carbon dioxide was not anticipated to be condensing into ice right here, so one thing is cooling it to the purpose that it may occur,” Lemmon mentioned in NASA’s information launch. “However Martian gravity waves should not totally understood and we’re not completely certain what’s inflicting twilight clouds to type in a single place however not one other.”
Although researchers do not completely perceive how the clouds are shaped, they’ll predict when and the place they may seem. Lemmon, who was a lead researcher on a 2024 paper detailing Curiosity’s first two years of cloud observations, mentioned the phenomenon has “develop into so predictable that we are able to plan our pictures prematurely.”
The brand new cloud images aren’t the one knowledge Curiosity has despatched again to NASA in current weeks. The rover lately investigated a spot referred to as the Gediz Vallis channel, the house company mentioned.
It additionally visited an affect crater nicknamed “Rustic Canyon” to take images and research the rocks across the crater. The 67-foot broad crater seemingly shaped thousands and thousands of years in the past, based mostly on the erosion of the location, NASA mentioned.
The rover will proceed on to a brand new location that features what NASA referred to as “boxwork,” or fractures within the planet’s floor shaped by groundwater. When seen from house, the fractures seem like large spiderwebs, NASA mentioned.
