NASA Perseverance rover is on a mission to Mars. Recently on 18 March 2023, it clicked the images of clouds above the Jezero crater during sunrise time.
The cloud was seen bluish in the sky in the images. NASA’s Perseverance Rover spend the 738th Martian day of the mission aka Sol.
Perseverance rover are on a mission to search for life on Mars.
What is Mars Sol?
Sol is the official timekeeping method that calculates the days any rover spends during its Mission to Mars.
One Martian Day is = 40 minutes longer than one Earth Day.
NASA Perseverance Rover Click the images of Drifting Clouds
Series of pre-sunrise images of drifting clouds in the Martian sky taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover on March 18, 2023. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA Perseverance rover used one of its navigation cameras to snap images of high-altitude clouds in the Martian Sky. It also shares the image on Twitter.
Dusty and cold, sure – but Mars has a certain, raw beauty.
Dawn at the Red Planet, with high clouds floating by. Take time to look up.
Full image: https://t.co/lOIB0GBraf pic.twitter.com/bYreLdR2Fc
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) March 23, 2023
These Martian clouds are usually formed from ice crystals with a size of about 1 and 4 microns and usually form up to 40km high.
Dr. Agustin Sanchez-Lavega a professor of Applied Physics at Bilbao School of Engineering said, “This is the time of maximum cloud development in the equatorial and mid-latitudes of Mars, between the northern spring equinox and the summer solstice.”
Clouds formation on Mars
The clouds on Mars are made of water ice but it also possesses carbon dioxide clouds.
NASA Perseverance Rover clicks the images of drifting clouds clearly showing the clouds are of a bluish color.
The difference between Earth and Mars clouds is that on Earth it is made from water vapor but on Mars it is made from dust-filled particles.
On Mars, clouds are formed from dust-filled particles.
In the Martian, atmosphere sun heats the dust-filled particles, which lifted above the atmosphere and form clouds.
On Mars sunrise color is blue, this color actually comes from the dust particles that cause the blue and green colors to scatter more in the atmosphere, which gives the appearance of a sunrise in blue color.
Whereas on Earth sunrise’s appearance is red color, because the red color is scattered more on earth atmosphere.
Also Read: James Webb Space Telescope Reveal: Trappist-1 Exoplanet Has No Earth-Like Atmosphere
Why there is a similarity between Mars and Earth’s Atmosphere?
Billions of years ago Mars was filled with water and sunrise and sunset are what makes Mars similar to Earth’s atmosphere.
But later when Earth’s atmosphere cools down and volcanoes and protective magnetic fields began to dissipate, Which causes water to evaporate in the atmosphere. Now Mars is a cool, dead, and dry planet.
But the recent images of NASA Perseverance Rover of the drifting clouds and the other previous rovers show the resemblance between Earth’s and Mars’s atmosphere.
NASA’s Previous Rovers Images of Mars Drifting Clouds
Recently NASA Perseverance Rover click breathtaking images of Mars planet.
Scientists from both NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) are studying the cloud formation on Mars.
In history, rovers send to Mars that click images of drifting clouds above the Jezero Crater.
Also Read: NASA Mars Lander Confirms No Way Home!!
Here is the list of a few rovers and the images they clicked during their mission to Mars -:
- NASA’s Viking Orbiter 1 clicks the image of clouds in the Valles Marinerie’s region during local morning time on 17 August 1976.
Morning clouds on Mars imaged by NASA’s Viking Orbiter 1 on August 17, 1976. Credit: NASA/JPL
- NASA’s Pathfinder lander rover clicked images of Martian clouds throughout its mission in 1996, which lasted around 83 sols or 85 Earth’s day.
NASA Viking Orbiter-1 Click the image of water and red dust clouds in the Valles Marineris region on 17 August 1976
- NASA’s Curiosity rover clicks the image of Martian clouds in 2021.
Composite image of Martian clouds taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover on March 19, 2021, or Sol 3063, just after sunset. This image is a combination of 21 single images and color correction was used to show how it would look to a human eye. Credit: NASA/Caltech
Scientists are still finding the answer to the question of whether there is life on Mars or not. They are still researching the clouds on the red planet since the first mission on Mars. But their endeavor will not stop since the first mission to Mars in 1976.
Hope the NASA Perseverance rover will discover some exciting things on Mars.