QUESTION:
How does the weather at the Martian south pole compare with our Anarctic
weather?

ANSWER from Wendy Calvin on November 19, 1997:
Well the big difference is that even though Antarctica is cold and snowy it
is all water ice.  The south pole of Mars is made of carbon dioxide.  That's
dry ice.  In the winter time a big cloud forms and the CO2 condenses
directly from the atmosphere onto the surface, making something like an
instant ice-skating rink.  Though some people think it snows dry ice on
Mars, this is something we don't know at all since we can't see down through
the clouds.

The other thing is that it is much colder on Mars.  The winter time
temperatures get as low as 140K, thats -207 Farenheit!

Also, there are no penguins :-)

The Mars 98 Lander will get there in the southern spring so we can watch the
seasonal polar cap retreat.  That is, we can watch the dry ice that forms and
goes away each Mars year, go away in 1999.