Martian Snow tagged posts

Martian Snow is Dusty, could potentially Melt, new study shows

Dusty snow dug up by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, a few centimeters below the surface. The blue box represents ice and the red box represents soil. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

Over the last two decades, scientists have found ice in many locations on Mars. Most Martian ice has been observed from orbital satellites like NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. But determining the grain size and dust content of the ice from that far above the surface is challenging. And those aspects of the ice are crucial in helping scientists determine how old the ice is and how it was deposited.

So planetary scientists Aditya Khuller and Philip Christensen of Arizona State University, with Stephen Warren, an Earth ice and snow expert from the University of Washing...

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