NASA Curiosity Rover Shows First Clear Images of Sun Rays on Mars

The Curiosity spacecraft of the American space agency NASA has taken clear images of the Sun’s rays on Mars. These images have been taken under the series of Twilight Cloud Survey. The survey started in January and will continue till mid-March. Sun’s rays are also called crepuscular rays. They are visible when the sunlight shines through the space between the clouds.

Curiosity’s Twitter These images have been shared on the page. This is the first time that the Sun’s rays have been clearly visible on Mars. These rays are most visible on Earth in hazy conditions, when light is scattered by smoke, dust and other particles in the atmosphere. These rays appear to meet at a point across the cloud, but actually run parallel to each other. Martian clouds composed of fine fragments of both water and carbon dioxide ice typically form up to 60 kilometers above Earth. However, in the new image, the clouds are visible much higher than this.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that this could be one of the reasons for their sighting to the Curiosity vehicle. The Sun’s rays on Earth often appear reddish or yellowish because sunlight passes through air about 40 times more than it does shining directly overhead in the middle of the day. This means that more light is scattered by the air. Because of this, the light reaching our eyes often appears red or yellow.

For the past several years, Nasa has been sending its missions to Mars to explore the possibilities of life there. NASA also wants to send astronauts to this planet. NASA has revealed that it is building a nuclear-powered rocket that could send humans to Mars much faster than conventional rockets. It takes 7 months to reach Mars. NASA has partnered with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program. It will be tested in 2027. The nuclear-powered rocket that NASA is working on could deliver a thrust-to-weight ratio 10,000 times higher than that of electric propulsion.