The white penitents
White ice penitents can range from a few centimeters to up to five meters. They are called this because they evoke the penitents covered in white hats that go in procession. They originate at high altitudes; for example, as in these photographs, in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile, above 4,000 meters.
The first to describe the penitents was Darwin, who had to pass through an area full of penitents on his way from Santiago de Chile to Argentina. He wrote that the natives believed that these strange structures were created by strong winds.
But, as has been shown later, the wind has nothing to see in the formation of the penitents, but the sun. First, small holes are created in the frozen snow by the action of the sun’s rays. And, once these holes are formed, by reflecting the sun's rays on the walls of the hole, the radiation is concentrated inside the hole. As a result, sublimation within the hole is accelerated. In this way, the hole becomes deeper and deeper, and in the interval of the holes the peaks of ice stand upright; the white penitents.
Buletina
Bidali zure helbide elektronikoa eta jaso asteroko buletina zure sarrera-ontzian
Teknopolis
