Mars Express Unveils 500-Kilometer Winter Wonderland on the Red Planet!

Recently, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) made public new visuals taken by the Mars Express spacecraft, showcasing a winter scene on the Red Planet. The images illustrate a late winter setting in the Australe Scopuli area near Mars’ southern pole, portraying a frigid terrain enveloped in carbon dioxide ice and dust.

Since its launch in 2003, the Mars Express mission has been delivering images of Mars for twenty years. During its 23,324th orbit, the spacecraft acquired visuals of the Australe Scopuli area. The captures were executed with the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), created at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research.

The visuals disclose a landscape where carbon dioxide ice creates intricate patterns of frost and dust. The darker sections in the images indicate layers of dust that have accumulated atop the ice, generating a striking contrast with the bright carbon dioxide ice. This disparity is particularly prominent on the exposed slopes and in the region’s valleys.

The snow on Mars consists of carbon dioxide ice, rather than water ice. During winter on Mars, temperatures can drop to as low as minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 123 degrees Celsius), which does not permit the formation of more than a few centimeters of snow. The Australe Scopuli area remains chilly all year long.

In June 2022, images of a snow-covered landscape in the Australe Scopuli area were captured by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter, where the “snow” is actually carbon dioxide ice. The Sun prompts the seasonal ice layers to retreat, resulting in sublimation in the lower layers as the upper layer melts.

As the ice undergoes sublimation, bubbles of trapped gas develop within the ice. The pressure accumulates until the overlying ice suddenly ruptures, leading to a gas eruption that bursts through the surface. The gas carries dark dust with it, which settles back onto the surface in a fan-like shape dictated by the direction of the prevailing wind. These gas jets can transport dust that lands in formations shaped by the air currents.

This mechanism generates fan-like patterns on the Martian surface, brought about by winds forming boundaries between different deposit layers. Analogous processes on the Martian surface can create structures resembling spiders, fried eggs, lace, and halos, with a similar technique resulting in the spider-like formations identified on Mars.

The juxtaposition of light and dark layers in the visuals arises from alternating deposits of bright carbon dioxide and water ice along with dark sands, characteristic of the region. These layers stem from frozen ice intermingled with varying quantities of dust. The Australe Scopuli region features a 500-kilometer-long ice formation composed of frozen carbon dioxide.

Mars Express has been supplying images that unveil the chemical makeup of Mars’ atmosphere, in addition to its visual phenomena. The mission has also provided intricate observations of Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos. Moreover, it has contributed to comprehending the history of water on Mars.

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On average, Mars has a temperature of minus 60 degrees Celsius, and the Martian atmosphere lacks sufficient oxygen for breathing. The terrain depicted in the images is gradually adapting to the Martian summer, even though the temperature remains at minus 193 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 125 degrees Celsius).

As sunlight heats the carbon dioxide ice at Mars’ southern pole during the summer, the ice begins to sublimate, transitioning from a solid to a gaseous form and expanding. This transition results in gas pockets as solar rays penetrate the transparent upper layers of ice, causing the base ice to sublimate.

Eventually, the pressure accumulates sufficiently to generate a gas explosion powerful enough to launch the dark dust beneath the ice into the atmosphere. These gas jets carry dark dust that descends back onto the surface in fan-shaped designs shaped by prevailing winds. The fans can range in size from tens to hundreds of meters in length.

As the dust settles, the wind sculpts it into swirling formations, producing distinctive shapes on the ground. The swirling formations emerge when the Sun’s radiant energy warms the dark areas beneath the ice before it melts. As the dust returns to the surface, the wind molds it into these unique designs.

Beneath the ice cover, the pressure escalates, and jets shoot upward. These jets carry a substantial amount of dust, depositing it on the ice surface. On the left side of the visuals, multiple dark spots are visible where the ice has already sublimated, transforming directly from solid ice into vapor.

The visuals illustrate alternating layers of ice and dust that are distinctly recognizable in the icy hills of the Australe Scopuli area. The perspective of a frigid valley on Mars resembles an earthly ski slope, replete with tracks in the snow. Hundreds of closely packed, dark fan-shaped patterns delineate the borders of layered deposits in the valley.

T-Online, Space.com, and Astronomy Magazine reported about the new visuals, along with other platforms.

This article was composed in collaboration with generative AI firm Alchemiq