A thing of beauty.
On February 2, the Sun slipped behind the Martian horizon and engilded a plume of clouds, revealing epic rays of light. Capturing that rare and ineffable atmospheric display was, the first time that such sun rays have been so clearly observed on Mars, according to NASA.
The dramatic sunset was painted in light known as crepuscular rays. Colloquially, you may know them as "god rays," often observed on Earth as divinely bright shafts of light bursting through clouds that seem fit to usher in a deity's descent from the heavens. The image was taken as part of NASA's twilight cloud survey. Since 2021, the agency has been snapshotting noctilucent clouds, or night shining clouds, in an effort to better understand the Martian atmosphere.
These noctilucent clouds appear in higher and colder altitudes than typical Martian clouds which rarely exceed an altitude of 37 miles above ground, suggesting they may be composed of dry ice rather than water ice.As I watched the sunset last month, I captured something spectacular: My team says these are some of the most clearly visible images of sun rays we've ever seen on Mars!
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