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Dry Ice Found On Mars! Overclockers Packing Bags for Next OC Event

@ 2008/06/21

The Wired Science blog has been flooded with comments and questions about yesterday's announcement that the Mars Phoenix Lander has observed ice on Mars. Some of these questions are so good that we can't let them go unanswered. So here's our Mars Ice FAQ.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/06/21

Of course they also found regular ice but that's not as interesting

Quote:

There is a lot of CO2 ice on Mars in the winter. However, Phoenix landed in the Martian arctic during the summer (because the lander is solar powered, the extra summer light is a necessity). In the Martian summer it is much too hot for dry ice to be solid. It would be like trying to keep water ice from melting on a 140-degree day here on Earth.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) will freeze on Mars at -125 C. Today's weather report from the Canadian weather station on Phoenix shows a low of -80 C -- way too hot for dry ice to stay solid right now. (Note the largest "pebbles" of ice were seen to stay solid for a day before disappearing).

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