Fresh grass of spring, sun in summer, falling leaves of autumn and snow in winter – change of seasons make our planet beautiful, doesn’t it? Like the Earth, Mars too has all four seasons, thanks to its “axial tilt” (25.2 degrees, compared to the Earth’s 23.4 degrees). But Martian seasons are nothing like the ones we have on the Earth! To know why, we must understand two things about Mars’ orbit.
One, the planet takes 687 days to complete a full orbit, about twice the time the Earth does. Therefore Martian seasons are also nearly twice as long. Two, while the Earth has a near-circular orbit, Mars’ orbit is more elliptical, or elongated, in shape with the Sun located at one of its two foci. As a result, during a certain period of the Martian year, the red planet is close to the Sun, and in another, it is far away. It so happens that Mars’ southern hemisphere is always tilted towards the Sun during the first phase, and away from the Sun in the second. This makes summers in the southern hemisphere warmer, and winters, colder.
The temperature differences between the northern and southern halves are so extreme that they generate winds often strong enough to sweep up fine dust from the surface and become massive dust storms.
Picture Credit : Google
