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Earth’s clouds can contain liquid-water droplets, ice crystals, or both. The Martian clouds discussed in current NASA observations are made of water ice or carbon-dioxide ice. That difference follows from Mars’s atmosphere: it is more than 95% carbon dioxide, far thinner than Earth’s, and cold enough at particular altitudes for water or even atmospheric carbon dioxide to freeze.
Martian water-ice clouds can nucleate on airborne dust and resemble very thin terrestrial cirrus. Carbon-dioxide clouds need an exceptionally cold layer, sometimes produced when thermal tides or gravity waves lower temperatures below the carbon-dioxide freezing point. The clouds are tenuous, seasonal and unevenly distributed, but they still change heating, cooling, circulation and the movement of water through the Martian atmosphere.
The essential difference at a glance
| Feature | Earth | Mars |
|---|---|---|
| Possible cloud condensates | Liquid-water droplets, ice crystals, or a mixture of both. | Water ice or carbon-dioxide ice in the Martian clouds described by NASA. |
| Atmospheric setting | A comparatively dense atmosphere in which liquid water can persist in many cloud layers. | A thin atmosphere containing more than 95% carbon dioxide (NASA, 2025), with much lower pressure and temperature. |
| Water-ice formation | Moist air cools until water condenses or deposits as ice on atmospheric particles. | Water vapor can nucleate on airborne dust when thermodynamic conditions permit nucleation and condensation; the resulting particles grow, move with the atmosphere and eventually sediment. |
| Carbon-dioxide clouds | Not a normal terrestrial cloud type. | Possible where the atmosphere becomes cold enough for carbon dioxide to freeze, especially at high altitude. |
| Visual comparison | Cirrus is a familiar high, ice-cloud form. | NASA describes many Martian water-ice clouds as cirrus-like but thinner; carbon-dioxide clouds have no ordinary Earth-weather counterpart. |
| Global cloud-cover comparison | Not quantified in the cited material. | Not quantified as a directly comparable global percentage in the cited material. |
The comparison is about phase and formation, not a claim that every cloud on either planet follows one identical pathway. Earth has many cloud regimes, while Mars has several distinct ice-cloud environments.
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Why the two planets make different clouds
Earth has a water-centered cloud cycle
Water is the relevant condensable in ordinary terrestrial clouds. When moist air rises or is otherwise cooled, some of its water vapor can become tiny liquid droplets, ice crystals, or both. Particles already suspended in the air provide surfaces on which condensation or ice deposition can occur. The result can be a low cloud of supercooled droplets, a mixed-phase layer, or a high ice cloud such as cirrus.
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That description does not mean all Earth clouds are liquid. High clouds are commonly icy, and temperatures, pressure and humidity determine which phase is stable. The important contrast for this article is that liquid water is a normal possible phase in Earth’s clouds, whereas the Martian cloud condensates addressed here are solid water or solid carbon dioxide.
Mars starts with a carbon-dioxide-dominated atmosphere
NASA reported in 2025 that more than 95% of Mars’s atmosphere is carbon dioxide. Mars also has much lower surface pressure and much colder atmospheric regions than Earth. Under those conditions, cloud particles are generally ice rather than liquid droplets.
Water vapor is still present and circulates through the atmosphere. The north residual water-ice cap is the main current atmospheric water source identified in NASA’s water-cycle description. During northern summer, seasonal carbon-dioxide sublimation exposes that water ice; water then moves through the atmosphere and returns as frost or snow. In colder layers, that vapor can form water-ice clouds. In still colder layers, carbon dioxide itself can condense into ice.
How clouds form on Earth
- Water enters the air. Evaporation and other exchanges supply water vapor to the atmosphere.
- Air reaches a condition where it cools or becomes saturated. Rising air expands and cools, but cooling can also occur through other atmospheric processes.
- Vapor changes phase. Water vapor condenses into liquid droplets, deposits directly as ice, or participates in a mixed liquid-and-ice cloud.
- Particles grow and move. Droplets and crystals are carried by winds, collide or grow by vapor transfer, and may eventually fall as precipitation.
This is a broad physical framework rather than a single recipe for every terrestrial cloud. The phase can vary within one cloud and from one altitude to another. Earth’s comparatively warm and dense atmosphere makes liquid-water clouds possible in a way that Mars’s present atmosphere generally does not.
How Martian water-ice clouds form
Dust supplies cloud nuclei
NASA’s Mars cloud-microphysics description says airborne dust particles can act as nuclei for water-ice droplets or crystals. When temperature, pressure and humidity make nucleation and condensation thermodynamically favorable, water vapor can collect on those particles and begin forming ice.
Dust is not evidence that every Martian cloud must use exactly the same nucleation route. It is the seeding process represented in the cited Mars models and observations. Those models follow several linked processes:
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- sublimation of water from the surface and residual polar ice;
- nucleation of cloud particles;
- growth of water-ice particles;
- transport by the global and regional circulation; and
- gravitational sedimentation as particles fall out of the cloud.
The sequence explains why a cloud can be thin even after it forms. Mars has little water vapor compared with Earth, and the available ice particles are continually transported and removed by sedimentation or sublimation when they enter warmer air.
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Water supply is seasonal
Mars’s water cycle is not uniform through the year. Northern summer exposes the north residual water-ice cap as seasonal carbon dioxide disappears from the surface. That supplies vapor to the atmosphere, where circulation carries it away from the pole. The vapor can later return as frost or snow, or form clouds when the air reaches a sufficiently cold and humid state.
Seasonal forcing therefore affects both how much water is available and where cloud formation is favored. Dust activity, topography and the large-scale circulation add regional variation.
Why Martian water clouds are often compared with cirrus
NASA uses Earth’s cirrus as a visual analogy for many Martian water-ice clouds: both are high, ice-particle clouds that can appear wispy. The analogy has limits. Martian clouds are generally thinner, and their low particle abundance and different atmospheric pressure make them unlike a direct copy of a terrestrial cirrus deck. “Cirrus-like” describes appearance and ice phase, not identical thickness, lifetime, precipitation or microphysics.
How Martian carbon-dioxide clouds form
The air must become cold enough for carbon dioxide to freeze
Because carbon dioxide dominates Mars’s atmosphere, it is available in abundance. Availability alone does not make a cloud. The gas must cool below the temperature at which carbon dioxide can condense as solid ice at the local pressure. That requirement is much more stringent than ordinary water-cloud formation on Earth.
NASA-authored research discusses thermal tides and gravity waves as processes that can cool an already cold atmospheric layer enough to trigger carbon-dioxide condensation. Thermal tides are large-scale atmospheric temperature variations linked to the daily heating cycle. Gravity waves are smaller-scale disturbances that propagate through a stratified atmosphere and can produce localized temperature changes. These mechanisms are plausible contributors, not a settled explanation for every observed carbon-dioxide cloud.
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High-altitude observations
Curiosity observations described by NASA in 2025 found iridescent clouds around 60–80 km above the surface. The visible wisps extended lower before evaporating as temperatures increased. Water-ice clouds were also observed around 50 km. The observations occurred in early southern fall at Curiosity’s location.
A NASA-hosted study by Guzewich and colleagues interprets clouds in the 50–80 km range as likely carbon-dioxide ice, while lower wave-like clouds may be water ice. Iridescence indicates a relatively narrow particle-size distribution and is consistent with cloud particles that have grown in a restricted microphysical environment. It does not by itself prove that every nearby cloud particle has the same composition.
An unresolved regional puzzle
Curiosity has seen the twilight carbon-dioxide clouds at Gale crater, while Perseverance has not reported the same phenomenon at Jezero crater. NASA atmospheric scientist Mark Lemmon summarized the uncertainty: “Carbon dioxide was not expected to be condensing into ice here, so something is cooling it to the point that it could happen. But Martian gravity waves are not fully understood and we’re not entirely sure what is causing twilight clouds to form in one place but not another.”
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Where and when Martian clouds appear
The aphelion cloud belt
A 2023 peer-reviewed study by Khayat and colleagues analyzed atmospheric observations from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars over five Mars years, approximately ten Earth years. It found a recurring aphelion cloud belt between about 10°S and 30°N, strongest around northern spring and summer.
“Aphelion” is the part of Mars’s orbit when the planet is farthest from the Sun. The belt’s recurrence across Mars years shows that seasonal forcing is a major organizing factor, even though individual clouds remain affected by dust, transport and local weather.
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Polar hoods
The same five-Mars-year climatology identified northern and southern polar hoods with different seasonal appearances. A polar hood is a broad, seasonally recurring cloud population around a polar region, not a single continuous storm. Its composition and structure can vary as the seasonal circulation changes.
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Khayat and colleagues reported high cloud optical depth over major volcanoes and Hellas Basin. Topography can influence circulation and the lifting or cooling of air, so these regional enhancements do not imply that volcanoes continuously produce clouds. They identify locations where the observed cloud signal was stronger in the study’s data.
Rover observations near the equator
NASA’s Perseverance team describes recurring cloud activity between roughly 10° south and 30° north around northern summer solstice, consistent with the broader aphelion-belt pattern. At Jezero crater, rover cameras and weather sensors monitor cloud timing, shape, particle sizes, radiation and thermal emission.
NASA notes that clouds seen near sunset can slow the surface’s cooling by emitting thermal radiation downward. This is a local observation of an atmospheric effect, not a measurement of a planet-wide cloud-cover percentage.
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Carbon-dioxide snowfall near the south pole
NASA’s Mars Climate Sounder observed carbon-dioxide ice clouds over the south pole during southern winter in 2006–2007. One cloud feature was about 500 km across, and smaller clouds appeared around 70°–80° south. The observations were interpreted as evidence that carbon-dioxide ice was falling and accumulating as snowfall.
These flakes are frozen atmospheric carbon dioxide—literally solid Martian air—not liquid precipitation. The report’s conclusion was that the clouds were thick enough for snowfall accumulation at the surface.
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Water-ice snow observed by Phoenix
NASA’s Phoenix lander observed falling water-ice snow in northern Mars in 2008. The observation confirms that water can precipitate from a Martian cloud as ice. It does not mean that Mars has Earth-like rain: the cited Martian precipitation examples are solid carbon dioxide or solid water.
Why thin clouds still matter to Martian climate
Radiative heating and cooling
Cloud particles absorb, emit and scatter radiation. NASA states that Martian cloud radiative effects alter atmospheric heating and cooling. The direction and size of the effect depend on altitude, location, particle composition and optical properties.
A high, thin cloud can influence the balance between sunlight entering the atmosphere and infrared energy leaving the surface-atmosphere system. At sunset, downward thermal emission from a cloud can slow surface cooling at a rover site. A different cloud at another altitude or with different particles can have a different net effect.
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Modeling indicates that Martian clouds can change the vertical temperature structure and affect wind systems. Because atmospheric circulation responds to temperature gradients, a small radiative change in one layer can influence transport well beyond the visible cloud.
Water movement
Cloud formation, particle growth, transport and sedimentation provide a pathway for moving water through the atmosphere. Clouds can redistribute water away from its source region and return it as frost or snow. Their climate role therefore includes both radiative effects and participation in the water cycle.
What the observations establish—and what they do not
| Question | What is established by the cited observations | What remains limited or uncertain |
|---|---|---|
| What are Martian clouds made of? | Observed cloud populations discussed by NASA contain water ice or carbon-dioxide ice. | The composition of every individual cloud is not known from one observation or one location. |
| How long is the seasonal pattern? | MRO/CRISM data covered five Mars years, about ten Earth years, and found recurring patterns. | The study is not a directly comparable global Earth-versus-Mars cloud-coverage measurement. |
| Where is the aphelion belt? | Approximately 10°S–30°N in the Khayat et al. climatology. | The belt is a population pattern, not a permanent boundary that every cloud obeys. |
| Why do some twilight carbon-dioxide clouds form at one site? | Very cold layers and gravity-wave or thermal-tide cooling are plausible mechanisms. | Why Curiosity sees the phenomenon at Gale crater while Perseverance does not at Jezero remains unresolved. |
| How much of each planet is cloud-covered? | Not stated as a directly comparable global statistic in the cited material. | A numerical Earth–Mars comparison would require a separate, consistently defined climatology. |
A practical way to identify the difference
When interpreting an image or description of a cloud on either planet, use this sequence:
- Ask what phase is possible. On Earth, liquid water may be present. On Mars, begin with water ice or carbon-dioxide ice for the cloud types covered here.
- Check the atmospheric source. Martian water vapor is tied to surface and polar-ice sublimation; carbon dioxide is the dominant atmospheric gas.
- Check the temperature requirement. Water-ice formation needs a sufficiently cold, supersaturated layer and suitable nuclei. Carbon-dioxide ice requires an even colder layer.
- Check the season and latitude. The aphelion belt, polar hoods and local rover observations occur in recurring but distinct seasonal settings.
- Separate appearance from composition. A wispy, cirrus-like shape does not prove that a cloud is made of water ice; high-altitude Martian clouds can also contain carbon-dioxide ice.
- Separate snowfall from rain. Martian precipitation reported by NASA is ice falling from clouds, not liquid rain.
Bottom line
Earth and Mars both make clouds when atmospheric vapor reaches conditions that allow particles to form and grow, but the materials and conditions are radically different. Earth’s clouds can include liquid water. Mars’s known cloud populations are ice clouds: water ice seeded by airborne dust or carbon-dioxide ice formed in exceptionally cold layers. Their recurring seasonal belts, polar hoods and local high-altitude appearances show an active atmosphere, while their radiative effects mean that even tenuous clouds can reshape Martian temperatures, winds and water transport.
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