Known as Noctilucent or night-shining clouds, twilight clouds are typically seen on Earth during the summer, but this time, the rover spotted them on Mars.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured an amazing and rare sight of twilight clouds on Mars. Known as Noctilucent or night shining clouds, they are typically seen on Earth during the summer, but this time, the rover spotted them above the red planet. A new video, made from images taken over 16 minutes on January 17, shows red and green clouds floating in the Martian sky. This type of clouds can only be seen when they’re high in the sky during the evening. This is not the first time these clouds have been observed, it was first seen during the Pathfinder mission in 1997 and later spotted by Curiosity in 2019. This is the fourth consecutive year when the rover has seen these twilight clouds.
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According to NASA, clouds on Mars are made of water ice. However, at higher places where it is colder, they are made of carbon dioxide ice. Since most of Mars’ air is carbon dioxide, these clouds create the colourful iridescent effect. They are visible at altitudes between 60 and 80 km in the images taken by the rover. Below them, about 50 km above the rover, water ice clouds are visible, moving in the opposite direction.
Taking to X, NASA wrote, “Cloud gazing, on Mars. Mars Curiosity captured these colourful clouds drifting across the Martian sky. The iridescent, carbon dioxide ice formations offer clues about Mars’ atmosphere and weather.”
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Cloudgazing… on Mars!
— NASA (@NASA) February 11, 2025
@MarsCuriosity captured these colorful clouds drifting across the Martian sky. The iridescent, carbon dioxide ice formations offer clues about Mars' atmosphere and weather: https://t.co/HAp2FDFjhk pic.twitter.com/DEWV477X01
Reacting to the post, a user wrote, “Cloudy with a chance of Martian sunshine.”
Another shared, “The Martian skies are painting a picture we Earthlings can only dream of.”
“This is really impressive. Good Job Curiosity,” a comment read.
One more added, “Wild that we can see storm clouds on another planet.”
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Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, shared, “I’ll always remember the first time I saw those iridescent clouds and was sure at first it was some colour artifact. Now it’s become so predictable that we can plan our shots in advance, the clouds show up at exactly the same time of year.”
Despite the fascinating sight, scientists are curious about why carbon dioxide ice clouds are only seen in certain places on Mars and not everywhere. They think that some areas on the planet might be suitable for these clouds to form. One possible reason could be gravity waves, which can cool the atmosphere for carbon dioxide to freeze into ice. However, they still don’t fully understand how gravity waves work on Mars.
