NASA captured impressive image of ‘rainbow’ on Mars

Rainbows are one of the most beautiful natural phenomena that can make anyone stop and look up at the sky. Because they look interesting and only last for a while, so enjoying something like that always makes people feel is the right thing to do.

And in a recent photo released by NASA, it appears that the US space agency’s new Perseverance expedition device has captured an image of a rainbow of the red planet.

The photo is taken by the camera located on the left rear of the device, one of the cameras to help the device know what’s around to avoid obstacles if needed. The recorded image shows what looks like a rainbow but with slightly less color, across the Martian sky.

When NASA released the photo, very quickly afterward many comments on social media talked about it as a strange rainbow. However, since a rainbow to form would require a considerable amount of water to float in the planet’s atmosphere, it is clearly not the concept of a “rainbow” as we know it on the Earth. land.

While it certainly looks like a rainbow, given Mars’s distinctive and distinct atmosphere, there’s clearly a need for another explanation for this photo.

Because basically, the rainbow (on the Earth) forms when light from the Sun shines on water droplets that are suspended in the atmosphere at a moderate angle, separating white light into different colors facing the ground. . Everyone has to get to the right place to see the rainbow, and this could also be true of this unique Mars strip of light. But, what is it actually made of?

Currently, there are two theories. One is that the light actually reflects off the tiny dust particles in the red planet’s atmosphere. Mars doesn’t have a lot of floating steam, but it certainly has a lot of dust. And if the dust is properly lit by the light, they can produce a strip of light like we see here.

The second possibility is the reflection coming from water, but not in the liquid form. Mars is very cold, and any amount of water vapor in the atmosphere will exist in the form of ice particles. Scientists have proposed this as an explanation for what we see here.

Another explanation shared on Twitter is that this is just a lens flare caused by the sunshades on the self-propelled device’s body.

However, it is difficult to confirm that any of the above assumptions are correct, because this phenomenon is observed with too little frequency and relatively low resolution pictures.

In the future, when humanity can finally make trips to the Red Planet, then we may get specific explanations for what we see in this image. For now, everything will be speculation.

Refer to BGR