Dust storms are a regular feature on Mars, often building into planet-engulfing clouds that last months or years. MAVEN and Odyssey use thermal cameras to monitor these duststorms with precision. At first, a spring breeze blew rusty dust through NASA’s Opportunity rover at Perseverance Valley. But then it quickly expanded and blocked out the sun…
The sky appears blue because molecules in the atmosphere scatter light of all wavelengths; shorter-wavelength light being scattered more heavily than longer wavelengths; which explains why it appears blue during daylight hours. At sunrise or sunset, when the sun moves closer to the horizon, more blue light scatters away while more red light reaches your…
As sunlight passes through the atmosphere it is scattered by air molecules and water droplets into scattered light of shorter wavelengths (blue). This causes it to appear blue during the day. Clouds form when larger particles such as water droplets spread all wavelengths of light equally, creating white clouds. If there is too much dust…
A galaxy is a large, sprawling space system. It contains millions of stars, dust, interstellar gas, stellar remnants and dark matter all held together by gravity. There are many questions regarding whether solar systems can exist outside galaxies. Some of these questions have been answered. But there are still some questions that astronomers have not…
