In a new find, data obtained from the US space agency NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has revealed the diversity of carbon dioxide on the Martian atmosphere. Against the previous belief that CO2 is present in high concentrations near polar regions, the new study states that the most prominent gas of the red planet covers the ground at night in some mid-latitude regions than in polar regions and it is generally absent for much of summer and fall.

Some dusty parts and some regions near the equator on the Red Planet become extremely cold in the nights similar to polar regions. A very thin layer of carbon dioxide frost appears on the surface at such low temperatures in the night. What’s interesting is that every morning this frost vaporise into the atmosphere.

Martian atmosphere majorly comprises of CO2 and polar regions have vast reserves of the greenhouse gas. Forming of CO2 frost at high altitudes has been known for very long and scientists have been studying such phenomena for many years. These frosts are also linked with the strange activities like geyser-like eruptions and groove-cutting ice sleds.

“The temperature gets so low, it starts freezing the atmosphere onto the surface,” said lead study author Sylvain Piqueux of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “Once you reach that temperature, you don’t get colder, you just accumulate more frost. So even on the polar caps, the surface temperature isn’t any colder than what these lower-latitude regions get to overnight.”

Some areas like Tharsis, Arabia and Elysium located in the middle and low latitude regions on Mars see CO2 frost all over the year due to extremely cold nights.

The data was obtained by the NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which has been orbiting the red planet since November 2006. MRO is equipped with instruments like camera, radar, and spectrometers to observe the neighbouring planet.

The study appeared in the ‘Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.’