Researchers imagine that 3.5 billion years back the climate on Mars was like that of early Earth: warm …show more content…
It has seasons similar to the Earth 's due to the tilt of its axis .Yet, the seasons vary in length because of Mars ' eccentric orbit around the sun, So Mars ' seasons are roughly twice the length of those on Earth since it takes Mars 687 days to circle the sun (which is more than earth’s 360 day orbit around the sun) and the seasons are more extreme in one side of the equator (South) and less extreme in the other (north). In the northern side of the equator, spring is the longest season at seven months. Summer and fall are both around six months long, and Winter is just four months long (During this time almost 20% of the air freezes).
It’s interesting to know that with no large moon like Earth 's to stabilize it, Mars occasionally tilts a great deal more toward the sun, creating warmer summers on Mars than it generally would have and during a Martian summer, the polar ice cap, composed principally out of carbon dioxide ice, shrinks and may vanish altogether. When winter comes, the ice cap grows back. Researchers say there might be some liquid water trapped underneath the carbon dioxide ice …show more content…
A magnetosphere is not required for rain to be present, but it is required to shield liquid water from solar radiation. Since the Sun 's radiation and the sun powered wind are always bombarding the planet, liquid water can 't exist; therefore, rain cannot form nor fall. Every so often, however, clouds do form and snow does fall.
Clouds on Mars are very small and wispy and the majority of them are formed by carbon dioxide ice. Researchers believe that a few contain small water particles. Since Mars is so cold the water in these clouds could never fall as rain, yet it can fall as snow in the upper atmosphere of the planet. But researchers have just seen this a couple of times and have no confirmation that the snow ever really reaches the ground.
On Earth, winds often develop in regions where thermal inertia changes abruptly, for example, from sea to land. There are no seas on Mars, however there are regions where the thermal inertia of the soil changes, prompting morning and night winds similar to the sea breezes on