It snows on Mars. This occurs, at least in the northern arctic region where the Phoenix lander set up camp in 2008. Science teams from Phoenix
were able to observe water-ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere and precipitation that fell to the ground at night and sublimate into water in the
morning. James Whiteway and his colleagues say that clouds and precipitation on Mars play a role in the exchange of water between the ground and the
atmosphere and when conditions are right, snow falls regularly on Mars.
www.universetoday.com...
Well, This is almost an un-surprise..
I'm kinda 'wow' about it but also a bit 'thought as much'..
Fascinating discovery though. You'll find a video image of clouds moving across the Martian sky too.. that's pretty cool to see.
There is a thread here on ATS that asks why the rover (one of them) does not seem to have a build up of dust on its solar panels... Could it be that
this snow is keeping them clean?
Snow falls on the rover at night...by the morning it is melted and washed away the dust..
Could be.. Maybe we'll know for sure sometime..
“Before Phoenix we did not know whether precipitation occurs on Mars,” Whiteway said. “We knew that the polar ice cap advances as far
south as the Phoenix site in winter, but we did not know how the water vapor
moved from the atmosphere to ice on the ground. Now we know that it does snow, and that this is part of the hydrological cycle on Mars.”
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