smoke from more than 400 Canadian wildfires descended on the Northeast, creating other-worldly sky colors from orange to fire red.The wildfire smoke has created poor air quality conditions for more than 100 million people and even hazardous ratings – the most extreme rating on the Air Quality Index – for major cities, including New York City, Philadelphia and Washington.
The light-scattering effect of the smoke molecules turned the sky several shades of red throughout the day Wednesday and had some asking, is this Earth or Mars?On left, a selfie taken by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover in the Jezero Crater on Jan.
29, 2023 on the planet Mars. On right, a view from Jersey City, New Jersey showing the smoke-filled sky behind the skyline of lower Manhattan and One World Trade C (NASA JPL/ Getty Images)Mars is nicknamed the Red Planet because of its color.
Mars gets its rusty color from the large amounts of iron on its surface.On Earth, the sky changes colors because of how light is absorbed and reflected by different molecules.