Incredibly rare ‘snowy’ images of Mars show ‘winter wonderland’ covered in unique ‘cube-shaped snowflakes’

SNAPS of Mars in snow are quite rare, given how difficult they are to capture.

But they do give us a glimpse of what a future Martian colony might enjoy — or endure — during the winter holidays.

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The average temperature on the Red Planet is around -65°C (-85°F), falling as low as -123°C (-190°F) at the poles in winter.

Fortunately, winter only comes once every Martian year – which is two years on Earth.

While Martian frost is much more common, the planet does see snow.

Snow falls and deposits on the north and south poles of Mars, usually at night in extremely cold conditions and under thick cloud cover.

Although you don’t want to venture too close to the planet’s poles or you’ll be battling bitterly cold temperatures and katabatic winds.

While no region will see more than a few feet of snow, “enough is falling that you can snowshoe over it,” according to Sylvain Piqueux, a Mars scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

He added: “If you were looking for skiing, though, you’d have to go into a crater or a cliff face where snow could build up on a sloping surface.”

Mars is home to some astonishing landscapes.

Not least the Korolev crater, which has a 50 kilometer wide and one kilometer thick sheet of ice at the bottom.

The thick wedge of ice cover lasts all year – meaning Korolev could become a go-to destination for future astro-skaters.

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Martian snow is unique in that it is cube-shaped, according to Piqueux.

And instead of falling in a shower, it descends almost like fog.

“Because carbon dioxide ice has a symmetry of four, we know that dry ice snowflakes would be cube-shaped,” Piqueux said.

“Thanks to the Mars Climate Sounder, we can see that these snowflakes would be smaller than the width of a human hair.”

Scientists have calculated that the dry ice-snow particles on Mars are roughly the size of a human red blood cell.

While frost on Mars was first discovered in the 1970s by Nasa’s Viking landers, the US space agency only discovered actual snow in 2003.

Using a special tool that can detect light invisible to the human eye, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected the carbon dioxide snow falling to Earth.

Then in 2008, Nasa’s Phoenix lander descended within 1,000 miles of the North Pole and detected van ice snow falling to the surface with a laser instrument.

No pictures have ever been taken of snow falling on Mars.

Cameras on orbiting spacecraft cannot look deep enough through clouds to capture snowfall at night.

And rovers on the surface simply cannot survive the extreme cold.

That said, Nasa has nevertheless been able to provide stunning images of the Red Planet that painted a winter wonderland – but only when the snow has settled.