Weather
Mars' temperature and circulation vary from year to year (as expected for any planet with an atmosphere). Mars lacks an ocean, a source of much inter-annual variation on earth. Mars Orbiter Camera data beginning in March 1999 and covering 2.5 Martian years shows that Martian weather tends to be more repeatable and hence more predictable than that of Earth. If an event occurs at a particular time of year in one year, the available data (sparse as it is) indicates that it is fairly likely to repeat the next year at nearly the same location give or take a week.
On September 29, 2008, the Phoenix lander took pictures of snow falling from clouds 4.5 km above its landing site near Heimdall crater. The precipitation vaporized before reaching the ground, a phenomenon called virga.
Read more about this topic: Climate Of Mars
Famous quotes containing the word weather:
“Is it possible
That any may find
Within one heart so diverse mind,
To change or turn as weather and wind?
Is it possible?”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)
“This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh, and ply;”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“What
One believes is what matters. Ecstatic identities
Between one’s self and the weather and the things
Of the weather are the belief in one’s element,
The casual reunions, the long-pondered
Surrenders, the repeated sayings that
There is nothing more and that it is enough....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)