Ice clouds put Mars in the shade

Ice clouds put Mars in the shade

Until now, Mars has generally been regarded as a desert world, where a visiting astronaut would be surprised to see clouds scudding across the orange sky. However, new results show that the arid planet possesses high-level clouds that are sufficiently dense to cast a shadow on the surface.

The results were obtained by the OMEGA Visible and Infrared Mineralogical Mapping Spectrometer instrument on board ESA’s Mars Express.

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