NASA's rover just aced some atmospheric science on Mars.
The rover took pictures of clouds drifting over its exploration site on Mount Sharp in order to measure their speed.
It wasn't an easy task as the cameras aren't designed to look up at the sky. The cameras of the rover were meant to look at Mars rocks and landscape features on its journey to seek ancient signs of habitability.
JPL said in the post that special techniques are needed to see martian clouds, which are very faint in the atmosphere. Clouds or shadows can be seen after subtracting the static background from each individual image.
NASA has a rover on Mars.
The clouds and their shadows were captured in two eight-frame movies. The days on the Red Planet are longer than the days on Earth.
JPL said that it used its navigation camera twice to look at the clouds. JPL said that two views allow scientists to calculate the clouds speed and height, which in turn provides clues about their composition.
The clouds are over 50 miles above the surface. It is extremely cold at that height, which suggests that these clouds are composed of carbon dioxide ice as opposed to water ice clouds, which are typically found at lower altitude.
The wind speeds near the surface of Mars are roughly 4.5 mph to 22 mph, which is fast enough to provide wind.
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