NASA’s rover snapped these stunning photos of glistening clouds on Mars

Photos from Mars are often eye-catching but rarely do the Martian clouds provide visual splendor. The rusty hues that cover the ground and most of the sky are often due to winds carrying dust, which happens a lot on Mars, and rovers sometimes have a tough time capturing what the clouds in the thin Martian atmosphere actually look like. NASA's Curiosity rover has made it a point to focus some of its scientific effort on studying the clouds on Mars, and as the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains in a new blog post, the scientists were surprised at what they've seen.

In studying the clouds, which were thought to show up on a relatively predictable schedule, the researchers found that some very interesting types of clouds arrived earlier than they were prepared for. In 2021, the team prepared to observe these early clouds and captured images of them that show how special they really are.