Spacecraft detects snow falling on Mars!

Spacecraft detects snow falling on Mars!
2012 09 17

A spacecraft orbiting Mars has detected carbon dioxide snow falling on the Red Planet, making Mars the only body in the solar system known to host this weird weather phenomenon.

The snow on Mars fell from clouds around the planet’s south pole during the Martian winter spanning 2006 and 2007, with scientists discovering it only after sifting through observations by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The Martian south pole hosts a frozen carbon dioxide — or "dry ice" — cap year-round, and the new discovery may help explain how it formed and persists, researchers said.

Researchers have calculated that carbon dioxide snow particles on Mars are roughly the size of a human red blood cell. Martian snow is depicted in this artist’s rendering as a mist or fog that eventually settles to the surface.

"These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds," lead author Paul Hayne of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "We firmly establish the clouds are composed of carbon dioxide — flakes of Martian air — and they are thick enough to result in snowfall accumulation at the surface."

The find means Mars hosts two different kinds of snowfall. In 2008, NASA’s Phoenix lander observed water-ice snow — the stuff we’re familiar with here on Earth — falling near the Red Planet’s north pole.

Hayne and his team studied data gathered by MRO’s Mars Climate Sounder instrument during the Red Planet’s southern winter in 2006-2007. This instrument measures brightness in nine different wavelengths of visible and infrared light, allowing scientists to learn key characteristics of the particles and gases in the Martian atmosphere, such as their sizes and concentrations.

The research team examined measurements the Mars Climate Sounder made while looking at clouds — including one behemoth 300 miles (500 kilometers) wide — from directly overhead, and from off to the side. These combined observations clearly revealed dry-ice snow falling through the Red Planet’s skies, researchers said.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected carbon-dioxide snow clouds on Mars and evidence of carbon-dioxide snow falling to the surface. Deposits of small particles of carbon-dioxide ice are formed by snowfall from carbon-dioxide clouds. This map shows the distribution of small-grain carbon-dioxide ice deposits formed by snowfall over Mars’ south polar cap. It is based on infrared measurements by the Mars Climate Sounder instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

"One line of evidence for snow is that the carbon-dioxide ice particles in the clouds are large enough to fall to the ground during the lifespan of the clouds," said co-author David Kass, also of JPL. "Another comes from observations when the instrument is pointed toward the horizon, instead of down at the surface."

"The infrared spectra signature of the clouds viewed from this angle is clearly carbon-dioxide ice particles, and they extend to the surface," Kass added. "By observing this way, the Mars Climate Sounder is able to distinguish the particles in the atmosphere from the dry ice on the surface."

Astronomers still aren’t entirely sure how the dry ice sustaining Mars’ south polar cap — the only place where frozen carbon dioxide exists year-round on the planet’s surface — is deposited. It could come from snowfall, or the stuff may freeze out of the air at ground level, researchers said.

[...]

Read the full article at: msnbc.msn.com

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

IRS Scandal - "This is Tyrannical"
2013 05 23
The IRS’s Job Is To Violate Our Liberties By Ron Paul | the-free-foundation.org “What do you expect when you target the President?” This is what an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent allegedly said to the head of a conservative organization that was being audited after calling for the impeachment of then-President Clinton. Recent revelations that IRS agents gave “special scrutiny” to organizations ...

EU Leaders to Sidestep Lisbon Treaty Rule
2013 05 22
The Lisbon Treaty clearly intends for the size of the European Commission to be reduced below its present size of 27 members. But EU leaders have reached unanimous agreement to sidestep the provision -- and even plan to add a seat to the table for the Croatians. From the outside, it looks as though the European Union is hopelessly divided. Northern ...

The Soviet Story
2013 05 22
The Soviet Story is a 2008 documentary film about Soviet Communism and Soviet–German collaboration before 1941 written and directed by Edvīns Šnore and sponsored by the UEN Group in the European Parliament. The film features interviews with western and Russian historians such as Norman Davies and Boris Sokolov, Russian writer Viktor Suvorov, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, members of the European Parliament ...

Inferno Author Dan Brown ’Honoured’ to be Invited to Join Freemasons
2013 05 22
The Freemasons’ Code: Dan Brown reveals the message that told him the door to the lodge is open. His best-selling novels illuminate the shadowy organisations that supposedly run the world. But Dan Brown was “honoured” to receive an invitation to join the Freemasons, the arcane fraternity whose tentacles are said to extend into the highest echelons of power. Tonight the Da Vinci ...

New EU law that could ban all seeds
2013 05 22
Seed lovers, growers and local producers could all be harmed under the proposed Regulation on Marketing of Plant Reproductive Material by the EU. Sign this petition and email the decision makers to stop this happening. A New Seed Law will go before the EU commissioners on May 6th 2013. The Regulation on Marketing of Plant Reproductive Material law will mean no ...

More News »