What is Mars like?
Mars is the 4th planet from the Sun. It is a terrestrial planet which means that it has a hard rocky surface that you could walk on. Mars' surface is dry and much of it is covered with a reddish dust and rocks. To us on Earth Mars appears to be the colour red.
Mars has some of the most impressive natural geographical structures in the Solar System.
Olympus Mons, a now dormant volcano, is the highest mountain in the Solar System.
It is 3 times as high as Mount Everest and towers 16 miles above the Martian surface. Another major geographical structure of Mars is the great canyon, Valles Marineris.
This canyon is the biggest in the Solar System. It is 4 miles deep in places and stretches for thousands of miles.
How does Mars compare to Earth?
In many ways, Mars is very similar to Earth. Mars' year and day are very similar to Earth
compared to other planets. Mars is a terrestrial planet like Earth. Mars is quite a bit smaller than
Earth both in diameter and in mass.
Unlike Earth, Mars has a very thin atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide. As a result, it
is much colder on Mars (average of -70 degrees F) than on Earth.
There is evidence that open water in liquid form once existed on the surface of Mars like Earth.
Perhaps there was even life on Mars billions of years ago.
Weather on Mars
Mars often has huge dust storms with high speed winds. These dust storms are powered by the
Sun and can grow to enormous proportions sending dust miles into the atmosphere and covering
much of the planet. Some storms are so big they can be seen by amateur astronomers on Earth.
How do we know about mars?
Mars is one of the easiest planets to study from Earth. It is fairly close and, since it is further
from the sun than us, it is easy to view in the night sky. The Mariner 4 spacecraft was the first to
bring us close up pictures of Mars in 1965. Since then several space probes have visited Mars.
The Viking 1, Viking 2, and Pathfinder landers, landed on the surface of Mars and sent us back
pictures of the surface. They also analyzed the Martian soil. Mars will likely be the first planet
that a human will step foot on. Many people believe it could happen by the year 2020.
Moons: 2
Mass: 11% of Earth
Diameter: 4217 miles
Year: 1.9 Earth years
Day: 24.6 hours
Temperature: -190 to +60 degrees F
Distance from the Sun: 4th planet from the sun, 142 million miles