News Planetary Science

No Escape: There’s global warming on Mars too

By Sid Perkins

- More than 2 years ago

The overall darkening of Mars’ surface in recent decades has significantly raised the Red Planet’s temperature, a possible cause for the substantial shrinkage of the planet’s southern ice cap, observed in the past few years.

DARKNESS FALLS. These images reveal changes in albedo on Mars between the late 1970s (left) and 2000 (right). The white feature at the center of each image is the planet’s southern polar ice cap.