Mars's polar skies found to be an almost balmy -93C

Published on Sunday 12 October 2008 22:05

A MARTIAN weather satellite has surprised scientists with its first report from the Red Planet.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found that winter conditions above the planet's south pole are much warmer than had been expected.

The probe, launched by the American space agency Nasa, went into orbit around Mars two years ago. Results from its observations are published for the first time in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Scientists hope to find clues which may explain how a planet that once had rivers and lakes like Earth became a desert.

They discovered that even in the depths of the Martian winter the atmosphere 19 to 50 miles above the south pole was being heated to -93C, which is about 20C warmer than had been predicted.

Professor Fred Taylor, from Oxford University, one of the scientists involved, said: "The pole is shrouded in total darkness for many months and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere freezes.

"Yet what we've found is that above the surface conditions are very different."