I just had to share this beautiful image by ESO photo ambassador Babak Tafreshi; it shows a star-filled night sky above the Chajnantor Plateau on the border of Chile and Bolivia, the site of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory. The site, chosen for its remote location and incredibly clear, dry sky, is one of the best…
Tag: snow
Surprise: it can snow on Venus! (But it’s made of metal.)
Our neighboring planet Venus is pretty badass. Sulfuric acid-laden clouds, crushing atmospheric pressure, and broiling surface temperatures soaring to nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celsius) make Earth’s “sister” world quite the alien horror show. And now there may be another strange phenomenon to add to Venus’ list of extreme oddities: heavy metal ferroelectric “snow”…
Venus Has a Surprisingly Chilly Layer
Although similar in size to Earth, the planet-next-door Venus is typically perceived as a hellish inferno of caustic clouds, crushing pressures and kiln-like temperatures. And while those are indeed all very much the case, Venus has recently been found to have a cooler side too… although it’s 125 km (77 miles) up in its atmosphere.
Phoenix’s Sense of Snow
The results are in: Mars has (or had) a favorable environment for life. Microbial life, sure, but life nonetheless. This is according to the results posted in this week’s edition of the journal Science, from the Phoenix Mars polar lander. The data indicates that the region around the lander has subsurface layers of perchlorate, a…
Lights in the Dark 