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NASA: No, That Wasn't a Rainbow on Mars
An image of what looked like a rainbow on Mars went viral for a couple of days, but now NASA explains what the shiny arc really was.
Science & Tech
When NASA posted an image of Mars on April 4 by its Perseverance rover, it didn't imagine it would go viral.
Oh, but it did. And the reason it spread across websites and social media like wildfire was because it looked like NASA had photographed a rainbow on the Red Planet, and quite frankly, who doesn't like a multicolored arc in the sky?
The photograph garnered so much attention that NASA felt the need to step in to rightly inform its captivated public that that arc wasn't, in fact, a rainbow, but a Hazcam lens flare.
The not-so-glorious news was shared by NASA on its Twitter page on Tuesday 6 April, in which the space agency stated "Many have asked: Is that a rainbow on Mars? No. Rainbows aren't possible here. Rainbows are created by light reflected off of round water droplets, but there isn't enough water here to condense, and it's too cold for liquid water in the atmosphere. This arc is a lens flare."