IT'S SNOWING!!!
Thursday 02 October 2008 at 12:06 pm
OK...it's not snowing exactly where I am.
A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the spacecraft's landing site.
Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars," said Jim Whiteway, of York University, Toronto, lead scientist for the Canadian-supplied Meteorological Station on Phoenix. "We'll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground.
Whether or not (or should that be "weather or not") the snow has ever accumulated on the ground makes no difference this time because "Data show the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground."
Sorry. But the martians children will still have to go to school today. (Read the entire article...)
(By the way. The graphic at the top of the post is a Martian sunrise. Doesn't look too dissimilar from the Midnight Sun of Alaska now, does it?)