Viral Photos: NASA’s curiosity rover snaps shining clouds on Mars

Team Udayavani, May 31, 2021, 11:20 AM IST

The Mars Curiosity rover of NASA captured shining clouds on Mars, which arrived earlier and formed higher than expected.

The atmosphere on Mars is usually thin, dry, and cloudy days are rare. The 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.

Although the scientists noticed clouds forming over NASA’s Curiosity rover earlier than expected, one full Martian year ago – two Earth years.

Sometimes you just need to stop and watch the clouds roll by… on Mars.

Cloudy days are rare here because the atmosphere is so thin and dry, but I've been keeping my cameras peeled and wanted to share some recent pictures with you. https://t.co/Gtgz9Iu822 (1/4) pic.twitter.com/iJOLmnXMVo

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) May 28, 2021

Heading into the weekend like a cloud on Mars.

This GIF shows clouds drifting over Mount Sharp. Each frame was stitched together from six individual images. https://t.co/Gtgz9Iu822 (2/4) pic.twitter.com/VPvSri1Sdh

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) May 28, 2021

The team started documenting these “early clouds” in late January this year.

The images show wispy puffs filled with ice crystals that scattered light from the setting Sun.

The rover’s Mast Camera or Mastcam snapped colour images and the iridescent, or “mother of pearl” clouds on March 5, 2021, the 3,048th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado said, “If you see a cloud with a shimmery pastel set of colors in it, that’s because the cloud particles are all nearly identical in size. That’s usually happening just after the clouds have formed and have all grown at the same rate.”