If you could
stand on Mars — what might you see? You might look out over a vast orange landscape covered with rocks under a dusty orange sky,
with a blue-tinted Sun setting over the horizon, and odd-shaped water clouds
hovering high overhead. This was just the view captured last March by NASA’s rolling explorer, Perseverance. The orange coloring is caused by rusted iron in the Martian dirt, some of which is small
enough to be swept up by winds into the atmosphere. The blue tint near the
setting Sun is caused by blue light being preferentially scattered out from the Sun by the floating dust. The light-colored clouds
on the right are likely composed of water-ice and appear high in the Martian atmosphere. The shapes of some of these clouds are unusual for Earth and remain a topic of research.
Image & info via APOD
Image
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Kevin M. Gill; Processing: Rogelio Bernal Andreo
Source: Ice
Clouds over a Red Planet – Scents of Science
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