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Venus has a layer of “snow” made of galena and bismuthinite, not water-based snow, due to high temperatures. The snow is more like frost and is found on the planet’s mountains. Mars has smaller snowflakes made of carbon dioxide.
At the top of the mountains of the planet Venus, under a layer of thick clouds, is a layer of snow. But that’s not the kind of snow that drives skiers to Earth’s mountains. The atmosphere on Venus is so warm that water-based snow doesn’t exist. Instead, the “snowy” mountains on Venus glow with two types of metal: galena (lead sulfide) and bismuthinite (bismuth sulfide). Scientists say this so-called snow is probably more like frost. In the lower plains of Venus, temperatures reach 480°C (894°F), hot enough to vaporize the reflective pyrite minerals on the planet’s surface, which enter the atmosphere as a kind of metallic fog and condense on the tops of the mountains.
Are there snow days in space?
Maxwell Montes is the highest peak on Venus, with an elevation of 11 kilometers (6.8 miles). They are 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) higher than Mount Everest.
More than 96 percent of the Venusian atmosphere is carbon dioxide, and Earth’s sister planet has nearly 100 times as much atmospheric gas.
Snowflakes on Mars are smaller than their Earth counterparts, about the size of a human red blood cell. They are composed of carbon dioxide, not water.
