Yes, well done and well deserved!
Question for anyone in the know: How many UMSF-mediated images have made APOD?

One more drooling fan joining the congratulations!
This image just had to go somewhere...

Two from the fab-four (Husband Hill and Duck Bay), not sure about any other UMSF 'team work' images though

Doug

Well done on the 'clouds' image hitting APOD.

For the so-called 'Fab Four' on UMSF, I think APOD could well mean: 'AMAZING PRODUCTS OF DEDICATION'.

Astro0

I submitted it, and probably there was some confusion since I ended up submitting both versions. However it looks like your name has been added to the credits now, Marco, so job well done. :-)

I submitted it before Astro0 did his great version, by the way.

Thanks, Astro0. I think too your filled version deserves APOD publication....

By the way, they (APOD) did a great job with the links... one of the links is to the Rub al Khali mosaic. The colors in the two images compare favorably, I think:

Dilo-colorized clouds image
Rub al Khali

It didn't quite register with me what all this "APOD" stuff was about until I made my nightly pilgrimage to Astronomy Picture of the Day -- and then I had to come back to UMSF and add my congrats! Well done, guys.

Hi everybody. This is my first post here, after lurking for a long while. I will not be posting here very much as I do not have any science background, and are not able to contribute much.

But I do have a question that google doesn't seem to answer. Is it clear what these clouds consist off? And if or how the substance off these clouds condense and "rain"?

All information indicates these clouds are cirrus-type water ice clouds. Atmosphere temperatures are generally too high for CO2 dry-ice clouds, and the atmosphereic water vapor levels when these clouds are present are high enough (though very low) that clouds are expected to for.

CO2 clouds probably form during the polar night and were observed by the topography-profiling laser on Mars Global Surveyor.

Viking Orbiters repeatedly saw an unusual cloud at very high altitude in a topographically fixed location they concluded was also probably CO2 ice. The cloud had very sharp, high contrast features indicating fast formation and sublimation and was at an altitude where temperatures marginally allowed CO2 ice. The topographic location was mid southern latitude where vertical oscillations of a "jet stream" was thought to be induced by big topographic features like the Hellas basin.

Zoost,
Just to elaborate a bit on edstrick's answer. Cirrus clouds are composed of tiny ice crystals. When the crystals start to fall they vaporize very rapidly in the dry martian atmosphere. They would never reach the surface, at least in the low and mid latitudes. Things might be somewhat different at the poles, but someone who knows more about the subject than I would have to explain that.

I did read somewhere that it could snow around the poles of mars. Which would be a GREAT thing to see (one day, with a future lander) or perhaps MRO can show the snow clouds seen from above one winter.

I try often to relate what we see on Mars to what we see on Earth.
Here is what I've seen 2 days ago from my home :


I feel the "stitch" add for a more Martian-like picture.
Enjoy

Snow in the form we (And Calvin of cartoon strip fame) know and love is highly improbable on Mars. There's a small likelihood though that microscopic ice crystals could precipitate out of the atmosphere, but they have a long long way to fall. Falling ice crystals would also be quite volatile in the low pressure of the Martian atmosphere and I doubt they'd stand a chance of actually making it to the ground. Still, I'd love to read anything suggesting it might be possible.

I was trying to look around for some references that would explain whether the "snow" that's mentioned for Mars actually fell from the sky or just precipitated in place (making it more what I'd call "frost" though it would be deeper). I always thought it precipitated in place but there are lots of researchers using the word "snow" so now I'm really confused. Anybody have any insight?

--Emily