As Earth gears up for New Year’s celebrations, Mars scientists have already marked the occasion. The Red Planet completed its orbit around the Sun on November 12, 2024, signaling the start of a new Martian year. While Earth’s northern hemisphere enters winter, Mars ushers in spring, triggering extraordinary transformations across its surface.
Rising temperatures and thawing ice bring a flurry of activity, including avalanches, gas geysers, and shifting dunes. “Springtime on Earth has lots of trickling as water ice gradually melts. But on Mars, everything happens with a bang,” said Serina Diniega, a planetary surfaces expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Mars’ thin atmosphere prevents liquid water from forming. Instead, ice sublimates—turning directly into gas—leading to noisy, violent surface activity. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been capturing these phenomena for nearly 20 years, revealing Mars’ active and dynamic nature.
Ice explosions and frost avalanches
Martian spring kicks off with dramatic events like frost avalanches and explosive sublimation of carbon dioxide ice. In 2015, NASA’s MRO captured a 66-foot-wide block of frost falling from a cliff—an example of how rapidly changing conditions destabilize Mars’ icy surfaces.
Another striking phenomenon is the eruption of gas geysers. Sunlight warms translucent carbon dioxide ice, causing the lower layers to sublimate. Trapped gas builds pressure until it bursts through the surface, ejecting dark fans of sand and dust. Researchers are especially eager to observe these geysers in the southern hemisphere’s spring in 2025, where they are larger and more distinct.
Winds reshaping Mars’ poles and dunes
Mars’ spring winds carve dramatic features into the planet’s polar ice caps and sand dunes. At the north pole, swirling troughs in the ice reveal the red terrain below. “These things are enormous,” said Isaac Smith of York University, noting their size rivals California. The fast, warm winds that flow through these channels gain power as ice thaws, similar to Earth’s Santa Ana or Chinook winds.
These winds also drive the migration of sand dunes. Winter frost temporarily halts dune movement, but as temperatures rise in spring, the frost sublimates, allowing the dunes to shift again. This seasonal process highlights the interplay between ice, wind, and sand in shaping Mars’ landscape.
Seasonal patterns unique to Mars
The Martian spring reveals seasonal patterns unlike anything on Earth. From gas-driven geysers and avalanches to the reshaping of dunes and polar troughs, each spring showcases the forces at work on Mars’ surface. NASA’s long-term observations provide valuable insights into these processes, deepening our understanding of this fascinating and active planet.
Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.
