NASA Curiosity Rover Shows First clear images of Sun Rays on Mars

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

Curiosity rover 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. On Earth, these rays are most visible in hazy conditions, when light is scattered by smoke, dust and other particles in the atmosphere. These rays appear to meet at one point across the cloud but in reality they move parallel to each other. Martian clouds, composed of fine fragments of both water and carbon dioxide ice, typically reach up to 60 kilometers above Earth. However, in the new image the clouds are seen much higher than this.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that this could be one of the reasons for their visibility by the Curiosity vehicle. The Sun’s rays on Earth often appear red or yellow because sunlight passes through the 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 last several years, NASA has been sending its missions to Mars, so that the possibilities of life there can be explored. 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 Translunar Operations (DRACO) program. It will be tested in 2027. The nuclear-powered rocket that NASA is working on can provide 10,000 times higher thrust-to-weight ratio than electric propulsion.