New Year, New Mars: Red Planet Gets Active as Spring Begins (Mars Report)
Mars scientists have recently marked a new year on the Red Planet, a milestone that occurs every 687 days. Because the Martian new year coincides with spring in the planet’s northern hemisphere, it’s a time of lots of activity — avalanches, exploding jets of gas, and more. JPL research scientist Serina Diniega explains some of the changes to the Martian surface that scientists can track with spacecraft like NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Circling the Red Planet since 2006, MRO carries a suite of science instruments that collect data on the planet’s surface and atmosphere. Among them is its HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera, which captured many of the detailed views seen here.
For more information on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, visit: science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter
Video credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; north polar cap image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS; HiRISE images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona; erupting jets artist’s concept: ASU/Ron Miller. Stock footage provided by Pavel_dp/Pond5.
Transcript
Serina Diniega (JPL Research Scientist):
So here on Earth, we’re entering the new year. We’ve also entered the new year on Mars. And with the change of seasons, Mars has a lot of great activity: avalanches, creeping sand dunes, exploding jets of gas that may even create some spiders! I’m gonna show you what I mean.
The Martian new year happened in November, and my friends and I got together to celebrate. While it’s winter here at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Martian new year starts in springtime in the northern hemisphere. Increased sunlight warms up that winter ice, which is mostly frozen carbon dioxide – which you probably know as dry ice.
So one of the ways that we can track the springtime changes on Mars is with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – or as we call it, MRO. As MRO flies over the polar regions, it can study the polar ice cap, which grows in the fall and winter, and then retreats in the spring.
Increased sunlight in the spring warms up that winter ice, causing large avalanches near the north pole. Ice and dust chunks from the cliff sides plummet down the slope.
Springtime warming also awakens sleeping giants. Surrounding the north pole of Mars are sand dunes that get completely covered with ice. As that ice is removed in the springtime, winds are able to reach the surface, allowing the sand and the dunes to move forward again, as dunes have been doing on Mars for millions of years.
Springtime also brings a very un-Earthlike process, forming exploding jets on Mars. Carbon dioxide ice does not melt like water ice; instead it goes from solid straight to a gas. On Mars, the seasonal warming causes that ice to vaporize, but from the bottom of the ice slab. High-pressured gas builds up until it’s able to explode out in a high-pressured geyser, spewing gas and sand and other materials onto the surface. Additionally, that gas as it escapes sometimes carves tracks into the Martian surface. In the southern hemisphere, we see giant, branching patterns of these tracks, which in the MRO images look an awful lot like spiders.
So these are just a few of the active changes that we see on Mars as it enters into its new year. Using images from spacecraft, we can track and compare these changes year to year, helping us learn more about our planetary neighbor and its exciting seasonal cycles.