NASA has baffled space fans by releasing an image of what appears to be a rainbow on Mars.
Rain on Mars isn’t possible so the picture went viral as people tried to come up with an explanation.
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The US space agency originally gave no answers and only captioned the image: “NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the area in back of it using its onboard Rear Left Hazard Avoidance Camera.”
Some experts suggested it was a “dustbow” created by dust particles on the planet.
Others thought it could be a camera lens flare.
However, Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab has finally provided some answers to tech publication Futurism.
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JPL media relations specialist Andrew Good confirmed to the publication: “What you’re seeing there is a lens flare.
“We have sunshades on the front Hazcams, which were considered mission critical (since we need them for driving forward, and we’re usually driving forward).
“Sunshades weren’t considered essential on the back ones, so you can still see scattered light artifacts in their images.”
The Perseverance rover arrived on Mars in February this year and has six cameras onboard.
Although it won’t be able to capture an image of a rainbow due to Mars’s atmospheric conditions, some scientists think “icebows” would be possible on Mars.
An icebow is a phenomenon that can appear in the atmosphere but is associated with sunlight interacting with ice crystals and not rain droplets.
Mars facts
Here’s what you need to know about the Red Planet…
- Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun
- It is named after the Roman god of war
- The landmass of Mars is very similar to Earth but due to the difference in gravity you could jump three times higher there than you can here
- Mars is mountainous and hosts the tallest mountain known in the Solar System called Olympus Mons, which is three times higher than Everest
- Mars is considered to be the second most habitable planet after Earth
- It takes the planet 687 Earth days to orbit the Sun
- So far, there has been 39 missions to Mars but only 16 of these have been successful
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What do you think of the Mars ‘rainbow’? Let us know in the comments…
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
