Stunning Scenaries Captured on Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover was designed to explore Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. It was launched on November 26, 2011 and landed on Aeolis Palus inside the Gale crater on Mars on August 6, 2012.

Just a few months ago, on February 2, Curiosity captured 'sun rays' beaming through the clouds during sunset. It was the first time sun rays, also known as crepuscular rays, have been spotted so clearly on Mars.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/SSI

Not only did Curiosity record these sun rays, it also captured a set of colorful, shiny clouds shaped like a feather a few days prior, on January 27. When illuminated by sunlight, certain types of clouds can create a rainbow-like display called iridescence.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“Where we see iridescence, it means a cloud’s particle sizes are identical to their neighbors in each part of the cloud,” said Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “By looking at color 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.”

Curiosity captured both the sun rays and iridescent clouds as panoramas, each of the images was stitched together from 28 images sent to Earth.