Mars's morning frost dusts Solar System's highest peak

No spacecraft had been looking in the right place at the right time until now

A light dusting of early morning frost has been spotted on top of Mars's Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the Solar System, for the first time. The frost is only visible for a short time in the early hours of the morning during the colder months. It forms when moist air becomes trapped in the large hollow at the volcano's summit, known as a caldera. The frost is only around the thickness of a human hair but covers such a large area that around 150,000 tonnes (60 Olympic swimming pools’ worth) of water are deposited on Olympus Mons and other nearby mountains. “We thought it was impossible for frost to form around Mars's equator, as the mix of sunshine and thin atmosphere keeps temperatures relatively high at both surface…

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BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2024

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