Residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota, endured a notably frigid period late last month when the city's temperatures briefly dipped below those recorded on the surface of Mars. The unexpected comparison highlights the extreme, if fleeting, nature of a recent cold snap in the Gopher State.
A Stark Planetary Comparison
According to AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Lada, a late-November cold front sent temperatures in Minnesota's largest city tumbling roughly 10 degrees below the historical average. Highs struggled to reach the mid-to-upper 20s Fahrenheit, marking the coldest stretch for the city's nearly 430,000 inhabitants since February.
Meanwhile, on the Red Planet approximately 225 million miles away, NASA's Curiosity rover was measuring comparatively balmy daytime highs. In the Gale Crater, where the rover has been stationed since 2012, daytime temperatures reached around 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Why Mars Remains an Alien World
However, as Lada was quick to point out, this superficial similarity is a stark reminder that Mars is an entirely different world. While evening temperatures in Minneapolis fell into the teens and 20s, the Martian lows plummeted to a bone-shattering near -100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The dramatic temperature swing on Mars is due to several key factors explained by NASA:
- Distance from the Sun: Mars orbits at about 142 million miles from the sun, compared to Earth's average distance of 93 million miles.
- Thin Atmosphere: The Martian atmosphere is only about one percent of the density of Earth's at the surface. This tenuous layer is woefully ineffective at trapping heat.
- Lack of Water Vapor: The absence of meaningful atmospheric water vapour, as noted by Lada, allows heat to escape rapidly after sunset.
This combination means Martian temperatures can reach a fatal -225 degrees Fahrenheit, far colder than any conditions survivable by humans.
Martian Weather: Familiar Yet Profoundly Different
Despite the extreme cold, Mars does experience weather patterns that seem familiar. The planet has seasons, powerful winds, clouds, and storms. The clouds are likely composed of water ice, but the bitter cold prevents rain. Instead, NASA scientists suggest precipitation most likely manifests as frost settling on the ground—a phenomenon observed by the Viking II lander in the 1970s.
The Curiosity rover continues its long-term weather tracking from the Gale Crater near the Martian equator. As recently as 1 December
