A Martian dawn so strange and lovely it feels like home

NASA's Curiosity rover caught this photo about an hour after sunrise on Mars back in August, and the agency just shared it with the world. Sunlight washes over jagged, wind-sculpted ridges called yardangs on Mount Sharp, a 3-mile (5-km) mountain in Gale Crater, under an orange sky tinged blue at the horizon. Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada says it reminds him of a road trip through Monument Valley, Arizona — like Earth, but definitely Mars. Curiosity has climbed more than half a mile (1 km) up the mountain, the most elevation any vehicle has ever gained on another planet, and it hopes to reach that distant layer of yardangs in 2027 or 2028 and study it up close.