Rainbows on Mars? One shows up in photo and NASA offers this explanation

NASA has been forced to do some explaining this week, after a photo taken April 4 on Mars appeared to show the Angry Red Planet had a rainbow.

That should be impossible, given that it doesn’t rain on Mars.

Yet there it was, riding high in a gloomy photo credited to the Mars Perseverance rover.

Social media — which loves a good conspiracy — immediately began asking funny questions, making strange suggestions and crafting memes.

“I’m starting to think NASA is lying to us,” one commenter wrote on NASA’s Perseverance Twitter page. “Maybe the rover is in a desert on Earth. .... That thing sure looks like a rainbow.”

“Just admit that this whole thing is a hoax and Perseverance is actually somewhere on Earth. That there is a rainbow,” another wrote.

NASA decided late Tuesday to offer an explanation via Twitter, though it probably came too late.

“Many have asked: Is that a rainbow on Mars?” the tweet said. “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.”

Seemed like a legit explanation, but again, this is social media we’re talking about. Soon, people were circling flying dots (possible UFOs) in the photo and enhancing background clutter to suggest a rainbow was just one of several oddities.

“Are you sure? Looks like a rainbow. Which lens can do this?” one person asked.

“Why no other flare on all other pix?” someone pointed out.

“If there is anything conspiracy theorists have taught me, it’s that lens flare doesn’t exist,” another wrote.

This story was originally published April 7, 2021 at 6:35 PM with the headline "Rainbows on Mars? One shows up in photo and NASA offers this explanation."