NASA robot captures drifting clouds on Mars

NASA's Curiosity robot recorded passing clouds above Mount Sharp, where it was operating on Mars, to measure velocity. It's not an easy task, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said in a February 15 announcement, because Curiosity's cameras are not designed to point skyward. Instead, they were built with the purpose of observing the rocks and Martian landscape in search of ancient traces of possible habitability.

"Mars clouds are very faint in the atmosphere, so special photography techniques are needed to observe them. Many pictures were taken to provide a clear and still background. This helps anything else move. in the frame, such as clouds or shadows, become conspicuous after excluding this static background from each individual image," explains JPL.

The clouds and their shadows on the ground were captured in two 8-frame videos on December 12, 2021, during the 3,325 Mars day of the Curiosity mission. The Martian day is slightly longer than the 24-hour cycle on Earth.

Mars clouds are very faint in the atmosphere.

Curiosity uses a double navigation camera to examine the clouds from two different angles, according to JPL. The two views allow scientists to calculate the velocity and height of clouds, thereby gathering information about their composition.

"These clouds are very high, nearly 80km above the ground. The temperature at that altitude is extremely cold. This suggests that these clouds are composed of CO2 ice, which is different from the clouds of water ice that usually occur at high altitudes. lower," said JPL.

The JPL announcement does not mention the speed of the clouds. However, the wind speed near the surface of Mars is usually 7-35km/h, which is fast enough to generate wind power on this planet.