NASA Images Showcase the Eerie Beauty of Winter on Mars (cnn.com) 11
CNN reports:
Mars may seem like a dry, desolate place, but the red planet transforms into an otherworldly wonderland in winter, according to a new video shared by NASA....
"Enough snow falls that you could snowshoe across it," said Sylvain Piqueux, a Mars scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement from a NASA release. "If you were looking for skiing, though, you'd have to go into a crater or cliffside, where snow could build up on a sloped surface."
So far, no orbiters or rovers have been able to see snow fall on the red planet because the weather phenomenon only occurs at the poles beneath cloud cover at night. The cameras on the orbiters can't peer through the clouds, and no robotic explorers have been developed that could survive the freezing temperatures at the poles. [ -190 degrees Fahrenheit, or -123 degrees Celsius) ] However, the Mars Climate Sounder instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can detect light that's invisible to the human eye. It has made detections of carbon dioxide snow falling at the Martian poles. The Phoenix lander, which arrived on Mars in 2008, also used one of its laser instruments to detect water-ice snow from its spot about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) away from the Martian north pole....
"Because carbon dioxide ice has a symmetry of four, we know dry-ice snowflakes would be cube-shaped," Piqueux said. "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 also form on Mars, and they can occur farther away from the poles. The Odyssey orbiter (which entered Mars' orbit in 2001) has watched frost forming and turning to a gas in the sunlight, while the Viking landers spotted icy frost on Mars when they arrived in the 1970s. At the end of winter, the season's buildup of ice can thaw and turn into gas, creating unique shapes that have reminded NASA scientists of Swiss cheese, Dalmatian spots, fried eggs, spiders and other unusual formations.
That's just the beginning, according to a press release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab: This "thawing" also causes geysers to erupt: Translucent ice allows sunlight to heat up gas underneath it, and that gas eventually bursts out, sending fans of dust onto the surface. Scientists have actually begun to study these fans as a way to learn more about which way Martian winds are blowing.
And they also note that the camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter also captured some surprisingly colorful images of sand dunes covered by frost
"Enough snow falls that you could snowshoe across it," said Sylvain Piqueux, a Mars scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement from a NASA release. "If you were looking for skiing, though, you'd have to go into a crater or cliffside, where snow could build up on a sloped surface."
So far, no orbiters or rovers have been able to see snow fall on the red planet because the weather phenomenon only occurs at the poles beneath cloud cover at night. The cameras on the orbiters can't peer through the clouds, and no robotic explorers have been developed that could survive the freezing temperatures at the poles. [ -190 degrees Fahrenheit, or -123 degrees Celsius) ] However, the Mars Climate Sounder instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can detect light that's invisible to the human eye. It has made detections of carbon dioxide snow falling at the Martian poles. The Phoenix lander, which arrived on Mars in 2008, also used one of its laser instruments to detect water-ice snow from its spot about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) away from the Martian north pole....
"Because carbon dioxide ice has a symmetry of four, we know dry-ice snowflakes would be cube-shaped," Piqueux said. "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 also form on Mars, and they can occur farther away from the poles. The Odyssey orbiter (which entered Mars' orbit in 2001) has watched frost forming and turning to a gas in the sunlight, while the Viking landers spotted icy frost on Mars when they arrived in the 1970s. At the end of winter, the season's buildup of ice can thaw and turn into gas, creating unique shapes that have reminded NASA scientists of Swiss cheese, Dalmatian spots, fried eggs, spiders and other unusual formations.
That's just the beginning, according to a press release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab: This "thawing" also causes geysers to erupt: Translucent ice allows sunlight to heat up gas underneath it, and that gas eventually bursts out, sending fans of dust onto the surface. Scientists have actually begun to study these fans as a way to learn more about which way Martian winds are blowing.
And they also note that the camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter also captured some surprisingly colorful images of sand dunes covered by frost
I miss the good old days (Score:3)
Sigh... I miss the good old days when science didn't have to be dumbed down and people treated like children.
Whilst the images in the YT video linked are fantastic, I felt decidedly nauseous and uncomfortable by the presentation offered by the two NASA front-people.
I AM NOT SIX YEARS OLD!
I was a kid when NASA landed men on the moon for the first time and I recall that the information published back then was nowhere near as patronizing and cringey as the stuff NASA dishes out today.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps they feel compelled to compete with the umpteen billion other sources of infotainment, as opposed to the nearly zero alternatives available in the 1960s.
Re: (Score:2)
You raise an interesting point... should *everything* now be a form of entertainment?
Should our university lecturers be stand-up comics and pole-dancers, so as to retain the attention of students?
The reality is that if we have to dress science up like a cheap hooker then it's no longer science, it is *just* entertainment. :-D
Re: (Score:2)
You raise an interesting point... should *everything* now be a form of entertainment?
Probably, since it holds people's attention. I vote for more video games as educational tools.
Re:I miss the good old days (Score:4, Insightful)
If something is entertaining and people still leanred something what's the difference, and whats your problem with it?
Talk to anyone who went to university and they'll tell you their favorite and most effective professors were the ones who were able to make their coursework compelling, engaging and accessible and the ones they struggled with the most were the dry, boring ones who were obviously there for the research and had no business actually teaching.
You may not know this but science is actually entertaining. David Attenborough isn't so widely beloved because he is some super technical biology nerd but he is able to present things in an accessible manner to entire generations of people.
Being smart in your field is realtively easy, compared to having that and being able to present your ideas in a way everyday people can understand and keep your audience engaged with the ideas is actually a quite difficult and a worthwhile skill.
Re: (Score:1)
If that video made you "nauseous and uncomfortable" you may have terminal "get off my lawn syndrome"
This is treatable with 10cc's of humor injection and a grumpyoctomy.
Try this [Re:I miss the good old days] (Score:3)
Sigh... I miss the good old days when science didn't have to be dumbed down and people treated like children.
Try this page, then: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search [nasa.gov]
-76C lows... at the equator (Score:5, Interesting)
-123C at the poles. Carbon dioxide freezing out of the atmosphere.
I've been outdoors in -45C, in very expensive gear. Doing field work at -30C was still not particularly pleasant. I can't imagine what it would take to "make camp" on Mars, even with as much automation as possible. I don't think a lot of people fully realize there's a decent chance of freezing to death almost immediately after landing, unless everything goes exactly right.
Re: (Score:2)
There's no worry of freezing to death on Mars. First, it'll take your body a lot longer to freeze with the ultra-thin atmosphere. Vacuum is a great insulator, there'll be very little heat transfer out of your body or your protective structure. And secondly, if you're exposed to the elements you'll be dead of asphyxiation within a minute so there's absolutely no chance of freezing to death.
Snow on Other Planets (Score:2)