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If Olaf, a sweet and sensitive snowman from Disney’s Frozen, had ancestors on other planets, could this be a dusty relative?
On July 13, which is Sol 1208 on Mars, the Perseverance rover Right Mastcam-Z camera saw an area with several rock formations during your daily investigation from the surface of the Red Planet. He obediently handed over a photo to Earth. If you look closely, like we did here at Space.com, you might notice that in the bottom left corner of the photo is a pile of rocks that resembles a baby snowman!
This little guy may have a drier, dustier makeup, as opposed to Olaf’s fluffy, bright-white physique, but if you use your imagination, he can almost present himself as a very important question for Perseverance: “Do you want to build a doll? snow?”
The Perseverance rover is still located inside Jezero Craterwhere it landed on February 18, 2021, but has now started its journey to climb the crater and move to a new location.
Related: The Perseverance Mars rover excavates the intriguing ‘Bright Angel’ rock formation (photo)
In theory, would it be possible for a real snowman to exist on Mars? Well, the simple answer is “probably not”. However, there is also a long answer.
Mars may have a thin atmosphere, but it can still shake dynamic climate and extreme weather events – from dust storms to, technically, even snow. However, it wasn’t always like this for the Red Planet. Reports from NASA’s MAVEN mission concluded that, in the past, Mars had a thick enough atmosphere that water could exist on the surface for prolonged periods of time.
Related stories:
– Mars rock sample from Perseverance rover may contain best evidence of possible ancient life
– The air sealed in Perseverance’s Mars sample return tubes is as precious as the rocks themselves
– Perseverance Mars Rover team revives life-hunting instrument after 6 months of effort
According to NASA scientists, there is still water on the planet – but with its currently thin atmosphere, this water would only be able to remain in a liquid state for a limited period of time. Thus, water on Mars may be located below the surface of polar regions, such as ice water or seasonal salt water that meanders down slopes and crater walls. Maybe someone could make a “snowman” out of these substances with enough tweaking, but I can’t imagine it would look like a classic Earth-based snowman.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to take a moment to appreciate what we can detect in the new image from NASA’s rover. Attaching sentimental shapes to rocks on Mars is exactly the same thing as lying in the grass and identifying animals in the clouds.
