NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured amazing images of clouds on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19th, the 3,063rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission. The image is made up of 21 individual images stitched together and color corrected so that the scene appears as it would to the human eye. | NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured images of clouds on Mars— as described in its blog post: “wispy puffs filled with ice crystals that scattered light from the setting sun, some of them shimmering with color.”

According to NASA clouds are rare in the thin atmosphere of Mars, but usually form at its equator during its coldest time of year. Scientists noticed that last year — two years ago in Earth time— there were clouds beginning to form earlier than expected, so this year they were ready.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A gif of clouds drifting above Mount Sharp on Mars, taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover on March 19th.

The images are not only stunning, they’ve provided new insights to the Curiosity team at NASA. The...

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