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Mars may seem like a dry and desolate place, but the red planet turns into an otherworldly wonderland in winter. New video shared by NASA.
It’s the end of winter in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter Investigating an ancient river delta that flowed into the Jezero Crater billions of years ago.
The main features of the planet are Dust also affects the weather on MarsDust usually heralds the arrival of winter, but the planet is used to snow, ice and frost. At the poles of Mars, temperatures can drop as low as -190 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 123 degrees Celsius).
Mars has two types of snow. One is the frozen water we experience on Earth. Mars’ thin air and sub-zero temperatures mean that conventional snow sublimes, or goes directly from solid to gas, before it touches the Martian ground.
Another type of Martian snow is carbon dioxide-based dry ice, which can be landed on the surface. Several feet of snow tend to fall on flat areas near the poles of Mars.
“It’s a waterfall you can snowshoe across,” says Sylvain Picew, a Mars scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. NASA release“But if you were looking to ski, you had to go to craters and cliffs where snow could pile up on the slopes.”
No orbiter or rover has been successful so far. look It snows on the red planet because the weather phenomenon only occurs at the poles covered by clouds at night. Orbiter cameras cannot see through clouds, and no robotic probes have been developed that can withstand the sub-zero temperatures of the poles.
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But the Mars Climate Observatory aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can detect light invisible to the human eye. We have detected carbon dioxide snow that falls on both poles of Mars.of phoenix lander, Arrived It also used one of its laser instruments to detect water ice on Mars in 2008 from about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) from the Martian north pole.
Thanks to photographers, we know snowflakes on Earth are unique and a hexahedron. Under a microscope, Martian snowflakes would look a little different.
“We know that dry ice snowflakes are cube-shaped because carbon dioxide ice has four symmetries,” says Piqueux. “Thanks to the Mars Climate Observatory, we can see that these snowflakes are smaller than the width of a human hair.”
Frosts based on ice and carbon dioxide also form on Mars and can occur far from the poles. The Odyssey Orbiter, which entered Mars orbit in 2001, observed frost forming and turning into gas under sunlight. Meanwhile, Viking landers discovered icy frost when they arrived on Mars in the 1970s.
At the end of winter, the ice that has accumulated during the season melts and turns into gas, creating distinctive shapes that remind NASA scientists of Swiss cheese, Dalmatian spots, fried eggs, spiders, and other unusual shapes.
in the meantime Winter in Jezero Craterthe recent high was about 8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 13 degrees) and the low was about minus 120 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 84 degrees).
in the meantime, and Gale Crater in Southern Hemisphere Near the Martian equator, the Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, experienced temperatures as high as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees) and as low as 15 degrees. Minus 105 F (minus 76 C).
Its elliptical orbit around the Sun means that a year on Mars is 687 days, or almost two years on Earth, so Mars’ seasons tend to last longer.
NASA scientists celebrated New Year on Mars On December 26, the same time as Arrival of the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere.
“Scientists count the years on Mars starting with the northern vernal equinox on Mars, which occurred in 1955. It’s an arbitrary starting point, but it’s useful to have a system.” NASA Mars Facebook page“Counting the years on Mars will help scientists track long-term observations, such as weather data collected over decades by NASA spacecraft.”
