Mars Express Orbiter Takes Images Of A Frosty Environment On The Big Red Planet

Recent images of Mars from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express Orbiter show off a winter condition on the South Pole of the Red planet. However, closer inspection and investigation into the dark substance covering the sheets of ice in the images reveals something interesting.

Mars Express Orbiter Reveals Winter Conditions On Mars

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), images taken by the Mars Express Orbiter reveal these snow-like conditions in June. During this period, it’s almost summer on Mars’ South Pole Australe Scopuli, so these images can’t show snowfall on the planet.

Instead, these images demonstrate the effects of a change in season from winter to summer. To better understand what we see in these pictures released by the European Space Agency (ESA), we need to understand Mars’ winter season better.

During winter on Mars, there are two types of snowfall to expect: water ice and carbon dioxide (dry ice). In winter, temperatures on Mars drop to -190 degrees Fahrenheit (-123 degrees Celsius), making the big red planet very cold.

Despite this drop in temperature, there’s not more than a few feet of snow on the big red planet. Water ice falling on Mars usually turns to gas before hitting the surface of the planet as a result of the planet’s thin atmosphere.

However, the other type of snow, carbon dioxide (dry ice), gets to the surface of Mars during snowfall. Once winter on Mars is over, the sun shines down on the dry ice-covered land, hence breaking down the ice and creating the conditions seen on the images from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express Orbiter.

Winter On Mars Ends With A Spectacular Display As Seen From The Mars Express Orbiter

With rays of sunlight shining down towards the end of winter on Mars, the dry ice covering the planet’s surface begins to recede. Since the ice on Mars’ surface is not water but carbon dioxide (dry ice), the sun doesn’t melt the ice as we see here on Earth.

Instead, the sun turns the patches of ice covering Mars’ surface from solid to gaseous through a process known as sublimation. Once the sun hits the ice on Mars’, the ice at the button closer to the planet’s surface starts the sublimation process.

With the ice closer to the planet’s surface, it rapidly turns to gas, and there is a pressure build-up under the top layer of ice. The top layer of ice then bursts open, releasing the gas trapped underneath.

The gas bursting through the ice comes with dark dust that scatters on top of the ice, which hasn’t yet sublimated. The prevailing wind then moves the dark dust scattered on the dry ice in a “fan-shaped pattern” to its direction of flow.

This action forms the interesting patterns that we can see on the images that the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express Orbiter released. The patterns formed by the dark dust on the dry ice sheets can then be used to better understand wind movement on Mars.