{"id":26271,"date":"2022-12-28T13:05:15","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T13:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/28\/nasa-takes-the-sting-out-of-cold-weather-on-earth-by-detailing-winter-on-mars\/"},"modified":"2022-12-28T13:05:15","modified_gmt":"2022-12-28T13:05:15","slug":"nasa-takes-the-sting-out-of-cold-weather-on-earth-by-detailing-winter-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/28\/nasa-takes-the-sting-out-of-cold-weather-on-earth-by-detailing-winter-on-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Takes the Sting Out of Cold Weather on Earth By Detailing Winter on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As a spate of nasty winter weather has buffeted much of the US in the past week, NASA is reminding us how much worse it could be. You could be living on Mars<\/a>, which some people inexplicably want to do<\/a>. Temperatures on the red planet can drop as low as -189 degrees Fahrenheit (-123 degrees Celsius), producing cubic snowflakes in the depth of winter and geysers of carbon dioxide as springtime approaches. Sounds lovely, right?<\/p>\n

Scientists believe that Mars had a more temperate climate billions of years ago, but today it\u2019s a frigid wasteland with a thin atmosphere composed mostly of carbon dioxide. However, there\u2019s enough atmosphere that it does snow during winter. According to NASA<\/a>, there are two kinds of snow on Mars: water ice and dry (carbon dioxide) ice. You\u2019ll never find a patch of water ice snow as it sublimates (transitions from solid to gas) before it can reach the surface. Dry ice snow, on the other hand, falls in great enough quantities that you could snowshoe across it. If you found the right crater rim shielded from sunlight, you might even be able to ski down it.<\/p>\n

The shape of snowflakes is a reflection of the conformation of molecules when they freeze. Water forms a hexagonal crystal, so the snowflakes on Earth have six sides. However, the snow on Mars is cubic in shape. That\u2019s a result of the shape of carbon dioxide crystals, which have four sides. Dry ice snowflakes are very small, though. Data from the Mars Climate Sounder suggests Martian snowflakes are smaller than the width of a human hair.<\/p>\n