London, July 23 (ANI): A new study has suggested that snowstorms more violent than any on Earth might have hit Mars, and could occasionally strike again, despite its extremely dry climate.
No rain or snowstorms have ever been observed on Mars, which has been mostly cold and dry for about 3.5 billion years, reports New Scientist.
However, mineral evidence suggests short-lived lakes have formed intermittently on the planet, sometimes inside craters.
Edwin Kite of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues plugged Mars's present-day conditions into weather-prediction software, to see what would happen if the planet had a 65-kilometre-wide lake near the equator.
The results showed a plume of warm, moist air rising from the lake at a top speed of 194 kilometres per hour, similar to the updraft speed in thunderstorms on Earth.
As the rising water condensed to ice within the plume, it formed a storm cloud that stretched to 35 kilometres in altitude.
The simulated storm cloud dropped about 10 centimetres of snow per hour, comparable to extreme snowstorms on Earth. (ANI)
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