Thanks to photographers, we all know snowflakes on Earth are distinctive and six-sided.
Beneath a microscope, Martian snowflakes would seemingly look slightly completely different.
“Because carbon dioxide ice has a symmetry of four, we know dry-ice snowflakes would be cube-shaped,” Piqueux mentioned.
“Thanks to the Mars Climate Sounder, we can tell these snowflakes would be smaller than the width of a human hair.”
Ice and carbon dioxide-based frosts additionally kind on Mars, and so they can happen farther away from the poles. The Odyssey orbiter (which entered Mars’ orbit in 2001) has watched frost forming and turning to a gasoline within the daylight, whereas the Viking landers noticed icy frost on Mars after they arrived within the Nineteen Seventies.
At the top of winter, the season’s buildup of ice can thaw and switch into gasoline, creating distinctive shapes which have reminded NASA scientists of Swiss cheese, Dalmatian spots, fried eggs, spiders and different uncommon formations.
During winter in Jezero Crater, latest excessive temperatures have been about -13 levels C, with lows of about -84 levels.
Meanwhile, at Gale Crater within the Southern Hemisphere close to the Martian equator, the Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, has been experiencing highs of -15 and lows of -76.
Seasons on Mars are inclined to last more as a result of the planet’s oval-shaped orbit across the solar signifies that a single Martian 12 months is 687 days, or practically two Earth years.
NASA scientists celebrated the Mars new 12 months on December 26, which coincided with the arrival of the spring equinox within the Northern Hemisphere.
“Scientists count Mars years starting from the planet’s northern spring equinox that occurred in 1955 — an arbitrary point to begin, but it’s useful to have a system,” in line with a submit on the NASA Mars Facebook web page.
“Numbering Mars years helps scientists keep track of long term observations, like weather data collected by NASA spacecraft over the decades.”
