Late winter has arrived on Mars’s Northern Hemisphere, and NASA recently released images of the season captured by its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The frosty scenes are a foreign-yet-familiar display of beauty.
Like Earth, the Red Planet experiences snow and frost and is home to water ice. So, in a way, its winters look like ours. But that’s about where the resemblance stops.
In a Martian winter, the planet’s average temperature - already a frozen minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit - plunges to 190 below. In this bone-chilling weather, the Red Planet also hosts a second kind of ice made from carbon dioxide, known as dry ice.
Year-round ice at Mars's south pole contrasts from the colored walls of flat-floored pits. The smallest of these pits, at the center, is the size of a stadium on Earth.
The freezing of water ice and sublimation of dry ice create these patterns on Mars's ground. Geysers of sun-warmed gas and dust are shown in blue in this enhanced-color image.
Frost-capped sand dunes near Mars's north pole, captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter two days after the planet's winter solstice.
These "megadunes," or barchans, are covered with carbon dioxide frost and ice. Sublimating ice reveals areas of darker sand.
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