NASA’s Image of the Day is a snapshot of Mars visible in a starry sky.
Mars, the Red Planet has fascinated scientists, astronomers and science fiction writers for decades thanks to its mysterious craters, lowlands, and cores filled with rare metals. Authors have even written books like War of the Worlds that imagine life on Mars. Movies like Total Recall only fan the flames of the search for extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet. The shocking thing is that the Red Planet can also be seen from Earth! It rises in the East before sunset and is visible throughout the night, with a reddish appearance and brighter than most stars in the sky.
NASA’s Image of the Day is a mesmerizing snapshot of Mars and vast star clusters shining in the night sky visible from Earth. Mars can be seen passing through the constellation Taurus. Another star cluster called Hyades can be seen almost 151 light-years away. Image taken by Gabor Balazs. NASA explains below the image,” At the end of this year, Mars still shines brightly in the night of planet Earth as it wanders through the powerful constellation Taurus. Its bright yellow color dominates this field of starry observables that include the alpha star Aldebaran of Taurus and the star clusters Hyades and Pleiades. While the red giant Aldebaran appears to anchor the V-shape of Hyades to the left of the frame, Aldebaran is not a member of the Hyades cluster.”
“The Hyades cluster is 151 light-years away making it the closest established open cluster, but Aldebaran lies less than half that distance away, along the same line of sight. To the right, about 400 light-years away, is an open cluster of stars cataloged Messier 45, also known as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. In Greek mythology, Pleiades was the daughter of astronomy giant Atlas and the sea goddess Pleione,” the space agency further explained.
Is it a Martian terrain asteroid?
According to a research paper, recently published in Geophysical Research Letters by Stephen Mojzsis and Ramon Brasser, an object the size of the dwarf planet Ceres has collided with Mars and disrupted part of the Northern Hemisphere. of it, leaving behind a rich mineral deposit. The debris left over from the collision slowly coalesced to form two moons – Phobos and Deimos. According to the study, rich minerals make up 0.8% of Mars.
