This is a Dust Avalanche on Mars By Nancy_A
Other studies hinted that the sublimation of carbon dioxide frost can dislodge rocks, causing an avalanche, but now images and data from the Odyssey spacecraft have found definitive proof.
Martian surface frost, made up largely of carbon dioxide, appears blueish-white in these images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System camera aboard NASA’s 2001 Odyssey orbiter. THEMIS takes images in both visible light perceptible to the human eye and heat-sensitive infrared. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
“Odyssey’s morning orbit produces spectacular pictures,” said Sylvain Piqueux of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who led the paper. “We can see the long shadows of sunrise as they stretch across the surface.” Lucas Lange, an intern at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working with Piqueux, first noticed the cold-temperature signature from THEMIS of frost in many places where it couldn’t be seen on the surface. These temperatures were appearing just tens of microns underground – less than the width of a human hair “below” the surface.. “Dry ice is plentiful near Mars’ poles, but we were looking closer to the equator of the planet, where it’s generally too warm for dry ice frost to form.
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