An introduction to Mars
Mars Quick Facts:
Distance from the Sun, 142 million miles
Speed of orbit is 14.5 miles per second
Planet diameter 4,220 miles
Length of one year is 687 days
Length of a single day is 24 hours 37 minutes
Atmosphere composition is mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Quick Look
Being fourth closest to the Sun mars is the second smallest planet of our solar system, it is also named after the roman god of war and is often called the “Red Planet” due to the iron oxide upon its surface. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a very thin atmosphere, its geographical topographies resemble both impact craters, volcanoes, valleys and even polar icecaps similar to earth. It is home to one of the largest mountains and volcanoes in the solar system known as the Olympus Mons. The Valles Marineris is also one of the largest canyons in our solar system and is also located upon Mars’s surface.
Its daily cycle is very close to that of earth with a 24 hour day, but orbital period is 687 days almost double that of earths. The planet has two moons, one called Phobos and the other called Deimos with are very small and irregularly shaped as they are speculated to be captured asteroids in example to 5261 Eureka.
As no human has yet stood upon its surface, NASA has already placed two robots upon its surface and seven within its atmosphere, the two on its surface are:
Mars Science Laboratory named Curiosity
Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity
NASA have ongoing research into terraforming and assessing the planets habitability for humans to live there and through this have found that in the future when space travel has become more advanced we may be able to live on this planet.
That’s all we wanted to cover here, for more information please see the following links or look for our other posts about the aspects of this Red Planet. Also we have a Quiz about Mars if you are interested follow the link here.
And as always, learn something new today!
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