Welcome to winter on Mars! Mars has seasons just like Earth does, so while it’s winter som

Welcome to winter on Mars! Mars has seasons just like Earth does, so while it’s winter somewhere on Mars, it’s also summer time somewhere on Mars too. Mars has the four seasons Earth has, plus two additional ones, aphelion and perihelion. How does that work with 6 seasons? The additional two are basically just referring to how close the planet is to the sun. Earth’s orbit around the sun is a pretty distinct ring/loop. Mars is significantly more elongated - that’s why sometimes you hear of Mars being closer to Earth sometimes too - these extra seasons are what make it important for launching rovers, and eventually humans, to the red planet, because distance is always changing. This also means warmer and colder versions of the four seasons, depending how close the sun is. The above images show ice on the surface, but it’s not water ice, it’s dry ice. Carbon dioxide that’s frozen! It will eventually melt (actually, it sublimates, which is just a fancy way of saying it evaporates - it turns from a solid straight into a gas). The dark spots on the icy dunes are actually just the surface poking through as the ice sublimates. Mars is incredibly cold. Keep in mind, the ice is all frozen CO2, which has a freezing point of -109.3ºF (-78.5ºC), therefore the temeprature had to be AT LEAST that for there to be ice. So no, Canada and North America are not actually colder than Mars, by the way. We’re covered in water ice, which freezes at 32ºF (0ºC). Despite it being cold (I would know after having to aggreesively remove ice and snow from my car almost every day this winter), it’s not nearly as cold as Martian winter. It can get down to about -195ºF (-125ºC) at the poles on Mars. The coldest EVER recorded temp on Earth was -128.9ºF (-89.2ºC) and that was in the heart of Anarctica. The bottom photo is ice on the surface, as seen from the Viking 2 lander. The images above it are from HiRISE on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. -- source link
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