Mars mission snaps striking ultraviolet view — image of the week

These remarkable images of Mars were taken by NASA’s MAVEN mission at almost opposite points in the planet’s orbit. The goal of MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) is to study the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the Sun. The mission’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph measures ultraviolet wavelengths, which are rendered in these images in false colour — red, green and blue. Ozone in the atmosphere looks purple, and clouds look blue or white.

The image on the left was taken in January 2023, when Mars was near its farthest point from the Sun. The magenta haze is ozone that has accumulated during the northern hemisphere’s cold winter nights. The image on the right was taken in July 2022, as Mars passed close to the Sun. The pale-pink splodge in the bottom left is a deep crater called Argyre Basin, and the white area at the base is the southern polar ice cap. Data collected by MAVEN are helping researchers to investigate how Mars lost a lot of its atmosphere in the past.