A research team unveiled that Mars’ Tharsis volcanoes have on and off patches of water frost, challenging previous assumptions about the Martian climate and helping shed light on how water behaves on the planet.
A research team unveiled that Mars’ Tharsis volcanoes have on and off patches of water frost, challenging previous assumptions about the Martian climate and helping shed light on how water behaves on the planet.
An international team of planetary scientists has detected patches of water frost sitting atop the Tharsis volcanoes on Mars, which are not only the tallest volcanic mountains on the Red Planet but in the entire solar system.
The discovery marks the first time frost has been spotted near the planet’s equator, challenging existing perceptions of the planet’s climate dynamics, according to the team’s new study in Nature Geoscience.
“We thought it was improbable for frost to form around Mars’ equator, as the mix of sunshine and thin atmosphere keeps temperatures during the day relatively high at both the surface and mountaintop — unlike what we see on Earth, where you might expect to see frosty peaks,” said Adomas Valantinas, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University who led the work as a Ph.D. student at the University of Bern. “What we're seeing may be a remnant of an ancient climate cycle on modern Mars, where you had precipitation and maybe even snowfall on these volcanoes in the past.”
Read more at Brown University
Image: This simulated perspective oblique view shows Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano not only on Mars but in the entire solar system. The volcano measures some 600 km across. (Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (A. Valantinas))
