What do clouds on Mars look like? Well, a new video stitched together from images captured by NASA's Curiosity rover offers a glimpse. In this video, delicate red-and-green-tinted clouds are seen drifting through the Martian sky in striking patterns that look similar to the ones Earth clouds make. Studying how and where on Mars these clouds form can help scientists better understand their impact on the planet's climate.
The images, which were captured on Jan. 17 by one of two cameras onboard Curiosity, feature "noctilucent" or twilight clouds — clouds captured wafting so high up in the Mars sky that they are illuminated by sunlight even when it is night on the planet's surface. The snapshots were collected over 16 minutes and sped up about 480 times to result in the video above, according to a statement by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built Curiosity and leads the mission.
