Early morning frost spotted on some of Mars’s huge mountains

While the frosty layer is exceptionally thin, it covers an enormous area of the Olympus Mons volcano. Photograph: © ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Early morning frost has been spotted on some of the largest mountains in the solar system – the colossal Martian volcanoes that rise up to three times the height of Mount Everest near the planet’s equator.

In colder months the fine dusting of ice, thinner than a human hair, appears to form overnight in the volcanoes’ summit craters, or calderas, and on sections of their rims and then to evaporate a few hours after sunrise.