American space agency NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has captured the images of two asteroids passing the Red Planet, as part of an experiment checking the opacity of the planet's atmosphere.

Camera team member Mark Lemmon, of Texas A&M University, said the two moons of Mars were their main target, but they chose a time to capture the images when the passing by asteroids would be in the shot.

Speaking about the feat, Lemmon said, "This imaging was part of an experiment checking the opacity of the atmosphere at night in Curiosity's location on Mars, where water-ice clouds and hazes develop during this season."

The asteroids photographed by Curiosity are Ceres and Vista, which are orbiting in the asteroid belt situated between Mars and Jupiter. NASA's Dawn mission studied Ceres for a couple of years. It is now preparing to study Vista. Ceres and Vista are the largest and the third-largest asteroids in the belt, respectively. With the Dawn mission, NASA scientists aim to learn more about the beginnings of our solar system.

It was the first time that the rover captured the images of an asteroid from the surface of the Red Planet, since it landed on the surface of the planet in August 2012.

The Curiosity mission is a part of NASA's Mars Exploration program, which aims to assess whether the Red Planet was ever capable of supporting life.