Sledding the Martian pole would be a very different experience from sliding on land snow. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) probe has obtained evidence that large snowfalls of carbon dioxide occur on Mars . It is the only known example of this type of snow in the entire solar system.
The presence in the southern polar cap of the planet of frozen carbon dioxide , also called "dry ice", has been known for years, and requires temperatures of -125 ° C , much lower than ice water. The Mars Climate Sounder instrument of the MRO probe has not only made it possible to detect snow clouds of icy carbon dioxide but also to verify that "they are thick enough to cause an accumulation of snow", as explained by Paul Hayne, co-author of the study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research . Specifically, by recording the particles and gases of the Martian atmosphere, their sizes and their temperatures, scientists have been able to identify a cloud of carbon dioxide 500 kilometers in diameter, which implies that the particles are large enough to fall to the Martian soil. .
The dry ice snowfalls suggest to researchers that while some parts of Mars closely resemble Earth, the red planet is actually very different from our own. Not surprisingly, the atmosphere of Mars is made up of 95% carbon dioxide.
