An interesting discovery has been made by the Phoenix, which has been sent to Mars by NASA. Apparently, Phoenix which has been exploring the Red planet’s surface for more than 120 days now, has detected snowfall, which is taking place high up in Mars’ atmosphere and may reach up to the surface of the planet too. 

The snowfall was detected when a laser was shined up by the Phoenix towards the clouds, covering the height of 2.5 miles in the atmosphere and ice crystals were detected there. 

The snow which has been dubbed as “diamond dust” consists of very fine snow crystals and due to technological limitations, it is not known whether this snow can actually reach the surface or not. 

The Phoenix was initially sent on a 90 day mission to Mars, but was extended to 120 days. The functionality of this Phoenix will give up once the cold and harsh Martian winters will approach, which will crack its essential parts. However as the name suggests, it has got a “Lazarus” feature that allows the Phoenix to jump back to life once the summers approach, but however, scientists don’t have any hope that it will return back to functionality. 

The main aim of the Lander is to search for any evidence of former liquid water on the surface of Mars. Keeping this in mind, the Phoenix surely has made some very extraordinary and important discoveries. The foremost discovery was of clay-like substances and calcium carbonates (limestone), which could not have been formed without the presence of water. 

“The snowfall, along with the fog and clouds can hint at the existence of water on the planet, perhaps even in the present. What this is telling us is that water does rise from the ground to the atmosphere and then precipitates down. So there is a hydrological cycle on Mars, and now other experts will study the data and try to determine what it all means,” reported Jim Whiteway of Toronto’s York University, lead scientist for the Canadian Meteorological Station on the Phoenix.  

However, the time is running out since the Martian winters are just around the corner, which will not let the Lander to perform more tests. The Phoenix gathers energy from the sunlight, that is abundant during the summers, when the sun is up for around 24h, 40 min. In winters, the time of day falls tremendously, thereby leaving no time for the Lander to gather solar energy. The temperature too falls rapidly thus making it really tough for the Lander to perform any task. 

In spite all this, this mission, which took around $428 mn, has been concluded as success by NASA, as majority of relevant discoveries were made during the mission. Now the Phoenix which is working in overtime is aiming to find more important and hidden facts about the red planet, related to its past and the chances of habitation in future.