By: Kai Wang
After years of exploring the surface of Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover recently captured a stunning sunset.
NASA's Curiosity rover has captured remarkable images of sun rays on the surface of Mars. The rover, which has been exploring the Martian terrain since 2012, recently took several photos that show the sun's rays illuminating Mars’s barren landscape. The images provide insights into the planet's hazy atmosphere, which scatters sunlight and creates a glowing effect around the sun as it appears in Mars’s sky.
"It was the first time sun rays have been so clearly viewed on Mars," team members from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) wrote in a statement.
The image shows rays of sunlight stretching across the horizon, lighting up a mass of clouds. The sun's rays are also called crepuscular rays. Crepuscular rays form when the Sun is just below the horizon.
On Earth, sun rays appear red or yellow because our thick atmosphere acts like a prism, scattering the sunlight into seven colors. The shorter wavelengths produce colors like blue and green that get scattered the most. As a result, the light that reaches our eyes is primarily longer wavelengths that produce yellow and red. The thin atmosphere on Mars does not scatter the sunlight as much, making the Sun’s rays appear white.
Curiosity also captured a set of colorful clouds. When illuminated by the sun, certain clouds can create a rainbow-like effect, which is called iridescence.
These cloud images will help scientists better understand weather patterns and conditions on Mars.