A Martian Aurora? NASA's Curiosity captures heavenly sun rays on Mars

In a marvellous capture, NASA's Curiosity rover has for the first time clicked the "sun rays" on Mars, the agency stated.

NASA said that the footage was captured on February 2 and showed the sun rays spread in the planet's atmosphere during the sunset. NASA stated that this is the first time they have captured the sun rays so clearly.

NASA took to Twitter to share a glimpse of the scenes captured by the rover. In the photo, patches of red and green light fill the grey sky on the rocky black landscape. The view was captured by the rover as the sun illuminated the cumulous clouds while descending over the horizon.

Martian sunsets are moody.

However, last month @MarsCuriosity captured a different kind of sunset on the planet. Rays of light illuminated a bank of clouds, making it the first time sun rays have been so clearly viewed on Mars: https://t.co/HhKa0IAWWv pic.twitter.com/iToToqaQmb — NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 6, 2023

The “sun rays” captured are also called crepuscular rays, which is derived from the Latin word for “twilight”. The Martian rover captured the image while conducting the twilight cloud survey. The image will add to its 2021 observations of noctilucent, or night-shining clouds.

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It was believed that the clouds are present 60 kilometres above the ground on Mars and are made of water ice. However, the latest images show the clouds hovering at a higher altitude, where it is really cold.

“Where we see iridescence, it means a cloud’s particle sizes are identical to their neighbours in each part of the cloud. By looking at colour transitions, we’re seeing particle size changing across the cloud. That tells us about the way the cloud is evolving and how its particles are changing size over time,” said Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist, in a statement.

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A set of colourful clouds, in the shape of a feather, was also captured by the rover on January 27. When sunlight will illuminate the clouds, a few of them will create a rainbow-like display called iridescence.

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