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That\u2019s right \u2013 dry ice may be carving up the Martian landscape in ways we\u2019ve never seen happen on Earth.<\/p>\n
Lots of gullies on Mars<\/p>\n
Mars has a reputation for being cold, dry, and dusty. But it\u2019s also home to some surprising terrain. <\/p>\n
Across parts of the Red Planet<\/a>, especially in its southern hemisphere, the slopes of sandy dunes are etched with deep, winding gullies.<\/p>\n At first glance, these gullies on Mars look like they were made at by flowing water<\/a>, maybe even something like melting snow or underground springs. But Mars is too cold and dry for that, especially now. <\/p>\n Temperatures in some places can drop to minus 190\u00b0F (minus 123\u00b0C) during the winter. That rules out liquid water \u2013 at least for most of the time.<\/p>\n Still, something had to be digging out those long tracks.<\/p>\n When dry ice becomes a bulldozer<\/p>\n Scientists have long wondered if carbon dioxide<\/a> (CO\u2082) ice \u2013 also called dry ice \u2013 could be involved. <\/p>\n The thin, Martian atmosphere is made mostly of CO\u2082 and, during the winter, it freezes and coats the surface like frost. As spring arrives, it warms up fast.<\/p>\n When this CO\u2082 ice sits on warmer sand, it doesn\u2019t melt. It goes straight from solid to gas, a process called sublimation<\/a>. That\u2019s where things get interesting.<\/p>\n In a recent lab experiment, researchers found that CO\u2082 ice blocks \u2013 some as big as 3 feet (0.9 meters) long \u2013 can actually dig into sand and slide downhill on a layer of gas. <\/p>\n As the bottom of the block sublimates, the gas has nowhere to go. Pressure builds up. Then . . . boom! The gas shoots out, blasting sand in all directions.<\/p>\n Dry ice and Mars\u2019 gullies<\/p>\n \u201cIn our simulation, I saw how this high gas pressure blasts away the sand around the block in all directions,\u201d said Earth scientist Dr. Lonneke Roelofs from Utrecht University<\/a>. <\/p>\n The escaping gas carved out a pit around the block, pushing sand to the sides and helping the block burrow deeper into the slope.<\/p>\n But the process doesn\u2019t stop there. As the block keeps turning to gas, it keeps pushing against the ground, slowly scooting its way down the slope and leaving behind a long, narrow gully edged with ridges of sand. This matches what scientists see on Mars.<\/p>\n To test this out, Roelofs teamed up with master\u2019s student Simone Visschers and traveled to Milton Keynes in England. <\/p>\n There, the Open University has a \u201cMars chamber\u201d \u2013 a sealed space where researchers can simulate Martian conditions like temperature and atmospheric pressure.<\/p>\n They tried different slope angles and dropped CO\u2082 ice blocks from the top. After a few attempts, things clicked.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter finding the right slope, we finally saw results. The CO2 ice block began to dig into the slope and move downwards, just like a burrowing mole or the sandworms<\/a> from Dune. It looked very strange!\u201d commented Visschers.<\/p>\n This was the first time anyone had ever observed dry ice behaving this way \u2013 blasting through sand like a living creature. It\u2019s a process that doesn\u2019t happen naturally on Earth, because we don\u2019t have the right conditions.<\/p>\n Where is the dry ice from?<\/p>\n The CO\u2082 ice blocks form during the Martian winter<\/a>, when a thick layer of dry ice \u2013 up to 28 inches (70 centimeters) \u2013 spreads across entire dune fields. As spring warms things up, most of the ice sublimates. <\/p>\n But the last remaining patches, often on the shady sides of dunes, can break off and tumble down.<\/p>\n Once these blocks hit the slope, the warmer sand triggers more sublimation. The blocks move downhill, powered by the escaping gas. Eventually, the CO\u2082 fully turns into gas, leaving behind a gully in the sand.<\/p>\n Mars, Earth, and the big questions<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s the point of studying all this?<\/p>\n \u201cMars is our nearest neighbour. It is the only rocky planet<\/a> close to the \u2018green zone\u2019 of our solar system<\/a>. This zone lies exactly far enough from the Sun to make the presence of liquid water possible, which is a prerequisite for life,\u201d explained Roelofs. <\/p>\n Because of this, it would be possible to study and answer questions about the origin of life, and possible extra-terrestrial life, here on Mars. <\/p>\n \u201cAlso, conducting research into the formation of landscape structures of other planets is a way of stepping outside the frameworks used to think about the Earth. This allows you to pose slightly different questions, which in turn can deliver new insights for processes here on our planet.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, Martian gullies don\u2019t mean aliens or even past water. But they do offer a glimpse into a very different kind of geology \u2013 one shaped by a type of ice we barely think about, acting in ways we\u2019ve never seen before.<\/p>\n The full study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n Image credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When scientists first spotted long, narrow gullies carved into the sand dunes of Mars, some believed they could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-209715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/mars-gullies_channels_dry-ice_HiRise_GRL_1s.webp.webp\")
<\/a>Two examples of Martian dunes with linear dune gullies. North is up in both images. (a) Linear dune gullies on a dune field in Galle crater. (b) Linear dune gullies on a dune field in an unnamed crater in the center of Hellas Planitia. Click image to enlarge. Credit: Geophysical Research LettersHunting for answers<\/p>\n