The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, hereinafter referred to as ‘Nasa’) unveiled the Mars sky taken with the Mars rover ‘Curiosity’ on the 17th (local time).
According to NASA JPL, it was very difficult to produce such a simple image because the sky was observed through Curiosity, which was designed for rock and other geological exploration. It is explained that it is difficult to look up at the sky because Curiosity is mainly facing the camera on the floor.
Also, the clouds on Mars are sparse and not easily observed. The cloud in the image is also 80 km above the surface. Earth’s clouds vary depending on the type, but very low clouds (lower clouds) can form up to 1 km below.
According to NASA JPL, the Martian clouds captured by Curiosity are composed of carbon dioxide ice, unlike ordinary clouds, because they formed at very low temperatures at high altitudes.
Space.com, a space media outlet, predicted that the speed of cloud movement would also be high because the typical wind speed near the surface of Mars is 7 to 35 km/h.
Reporter Seo Hee-won, Electronic Newspaper Internet ([email protected])