How Much Carbon Dioxide Snow Falls Every Winter on Mars?

Seldom Bucket

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Like Earth, Mars experiences climatic variations during the course of a year because of the tilted nature of its orbit (aka. seasonal change). Similarly, these variations in temperature result in interaction between the atmosphere and the polar ice caps. On Earth, seasonal variations in temperature and precipitation cause the polar ice cap in one hemisphere to grow while the ice cap in the other hemisphere shrinks.


On Mars, however, things work a little differently. In addition to snow raining down on the polar ice caps during winter, the Martian polar ice caps also receive a great deal of frozen carbon dioxide (“dry ice”) in addition to snow. Recently, an international team of scientists used data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) mission to measure how the planet’s polar ice caps grow and recede. Their results could provide new insights into how the Martian climate varies due to seasonal change.

 

Düber

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I never knew that that the CO2 actually snowed down.
I always thought, perhaps a bit silly now that I think of it, that the polar caps were ice sheets that just built up over time.
 
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