Life on Mars? Possibly, and snowmen too!

THEY call it the Red Planet, but it seems there are occasions when Mars enjoys a whiteout.

Complex computer programs simulating Martian weather have identified snowstorms.

Scientists said the ‘microbursts’ occur due to the cooling of water-ice particles in clouds.

A study published in Nature Geoscience said because the atmosphere is cold and thin, water-ice clouds can form.

This is despite the limited amount of atmospheric water vapour compared to Earth. It had been thought any snow that fell from these clouds did so as slowly settling particles – rather than in rapidly descending storms.

But meteorologist Dr Aymeric Spiga, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and colleagues used an atmospheric model to imitate the weather on Mars.

It sheds light on the previously unexplained snowfall detected by Nasa’s Phoenix lander in 2008.

His team’s model was of a vast area of Mars which included Tharsis Montes – a volcanic plateau where ice clouds gather at night – and Amazonis Planitia, a plain where they do not.

Dr Spiga said: ‘In our simulations, convective snowstorms occur only during the Martian night and result from atmospheric instability due to radiative cooling of water-ice cloud particles.’