Researchers: It snows on Mars during the summer nights

Researchers speculate that on summer nights snowstorms occur on Mars, painting the red planet white, and it is possible that they may even allow the existence of manned expeditions there

Credit: Oded Carmeli The Israeli Space Agency

The next time you complain about the Israeli heat, and point out how London is rainy and gray or how in Sweden the summer is cool and pleasant, we will tell you that according to the simulations of a team of astronomers from the USA and France, during the summer nights on Mars, white snowflakes fall at night onto the red soil of the planet.

Although it is the subject of ongoing research, the weather on Mars is very deceiving, so once in a while we continue to make wonderful discoveries on the planet. We already know that flowing water has been discovered on it, and that there are reservoirs of ice at its two poles, similar to our north and south poles, and that these ice reservoirs change their size according to the seasons on Mars.

Despite its thin atmosphere and air pressure that is less than 1% compared to the air pressure at our sea level, the space telescopes and probes we sent to Mars have long been able to detect clouds in the star's sky. Now the international research team claims that blizzards and ice water storms occur on the planet, which are created as a result of the cooling of the atmosphere and the drop in temperature in the evenings.

From the analysis of the data, the researchers came to the conclusion that due to the temperature differences between day and night on Mars, the ice water particles condense and become clouds. These clouds are not stable enough, so the storms on Mars are short and powerful. According to The study was published in Nature Geoscience, these are snowstorms accompanied by strong winds, in which the snow reaches the ground quickly - within a few minutes and not slowly, in a phenomenon known on Earth as a Microburst or "burst of wind".

According to the study, the snow that falls during the night does not accumulate enough to build a snowman on Mars or to pull out the skis, but it certainly creates a dramatic appearance of a thick white layer of frost on the red ground for skiers.

This research conflicts with previous assumptions regarding the climate on Mars, since before it they assumed that the atmosphere on the planet is too thin to allow rain to form, as well as the assumption that a snowstorm cannot occur there because the wind there is too thin and the snowflakes fall slowly due to their weight.

If the findings of the current study are correct, it also carries good news regarding settlement on Mars, because it indicates the possibility of storing sediments and making use of them. In the meantime, it can provide us with a cooling thought for the hottest month of the year.

Curious to know more about Mars? Enter the Israel Space Agency website

See more on the subject on the science website:

• The solar wind has removed most of the Martian atmosphere
• Why does part of the south pole of Mars look like Swiss cheese?
• The Curiosity rover adds to a mystery that has plagued Mars explorers for years