"I'll always remember the first time I saw those iridescent clouds and was sure at first it was some color artifact."

While the sight is fascinating, scientists are still trying to understand why carbon dioxide ice clouds only form in specific areas of Mars.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured breathtaking images of red and green-tinted clouds drifting across the Martian sky. These clouds, called noctilucent clouds (which means “night shining” in Latin), appear at twilight and are visible because the setting sun scatters light through them.

Latin for “night shining,” noctilucent clouds (also known as twilight clouds) are responsible for Earth’s vibrant red, orange, and purple dawn and dusk skies. If the conditions are just right, they sometimes even take on an iridescent,

The iridescent cloud reveals new clues about ice formation in the Martian atmosphere (no little green men, sorry).

The phenomenon of twilight clouds was first observed on Mars in 1997 during NASA’s Pathfinder mission. However, it wasn’t until 2019 that the Curiosity Rover captured the firs

At the surface, Mars is a desolate, barren world with a rocky landscape, massive dust storms and extreme temperature swings. However, a rover recently captured a splash of color in the sky as rare clouds drifted overhead.