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Curiosity, a Mars rover that is solving ‘curiosity’ on a distant red planet, has captured an interesting cloud image. Recently, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) released images of moving clouds on Mars taken by Curiosity.
This video, made by processing several images, is set in the current exploration area, Mt. However, the reason why the picture quality looks like this is because, along with the characteristics of the Martian atmosphere, Curiosity’s camera is designed to photograph the Martian landscape and rocks, rather than looking up at the sky.
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“The Martian clouds are very faint in the atmosphere, so you need special imaging techniques to see them,” said JPL. explained. “This cloud is high at regarding 80 km high, so it is highly likely that it is made of carbon dioxide ice,” he added.
Clouds in the Martian sky seem quite heterogeneous, but because Mars also has an atmosphere and water vapor, clouds can form. But even if Mars has Earth-like clouds, the atmospheres of the two planets are not the same. Mars’ atmosphere is regarding 100 times thinner than Earth’s, and its main composition is different. Earth’s atmosphere contains 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and some carbon dioxide, while Mars is mostly carbon dioxide. Also, these clouds on Mars do not appear every day, but are only visible from time to time.
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Meanwhile, Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars for 10 years this year, is the size of a small car and moves 200 meters a day and continues exploration.
In the past, Curiosity has analyzed the geology and soil of Mars to secure analysis data for organic matter such as methane and investigated whether the conditions are suitable for microorganisms to survive. In fact, Curiosity did a great job of discovering traces of water flow on Mars a long time ago and evidence of methane and nitrates needed for life.
By Park Jong-ik, staff reporter pji@seoul.co.kr
