Scenes from a dry-ice winter on Mars (pictures)

Fall and winter temperatures bring seasonal changes to Mars as the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere turns to dry-ice frost, ice, and snow, which clings to the surface. Take a look at some of the amazingly detailed wintry scenes the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured of nature's beauty in a land far, far away.Last year, data collected by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter gave scientists a clearer picture of Mars' carbon-dioxide atmosphere and revealed the only known example of carbon-dioxide snow falling anywhere in our solar system.



"These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds," said the report's lead author, Paul Hayne of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We firmly establish the clouds are composed of carbon dioxide -- flakes of Martian air -- and they are thick enough to result in snowfall accumulation at the surface."



Temperatures of about minus 193 degrees Fahrenheit are required to freeze carbon dioxide, and as the atmosphere freezes it is deposited on the Martian surface in a way unlike anything we know on Earth.



Fall and winter temperatures bring seasonal changes to Mars as the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere turns to dry-ice frost, and sometimes snow, which clings to the surface. Take a look at some of the amazingly detailed wintry scenes the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured of nature's beauty in a land far, far away. [Read more]





by CBS Interactive via CNET