Mars: Unveiling the Secrets of the Red Planet
Mars, often called the Red Planet, has captured the imagination of scientists and enthusiasts for centuries. Its rusty hue, visible even to the naked eye, hints at a world both familiar and alien. As the fourth planet from the Sun, Mars is a cold, desert world with a thin atmosphere, holding secrets to the solar system's past and potentially, its future. Though we may not be able to live on Mars (yet!), there’s a goldmine of interesting facts about Mars to enrich your elementary students’ knowledge of the red planet and the galaxy around us.
A Planet of Many Names
The planet Mars was named after the Roman god of War. The ancient Romans named the planet after their god of war due to its red color. For the Greeks, Mars was known as Ares. The ancient Sumerians called Mars Nergal, their god of war and plague. In ancient texts, Mars was known as the "star of judgment of the fate of the dead."
The Red Planet's Rusty Surface
Mars is also known as the red planet, and you might have guessed why…because it’s red! Mars is widely known as the Red planet. People often call it the "Red Planet" because its surface is covered in reddish iron oxide, which is like rust. The red colour of Mars comes from the high level of iron oxide in its regolith (surface material). At the surface, we see colors such as brown, gold, and tan. The reason Mars looks reddish is due to oxidization - or rusting - of iron in the rocks, regolith (Martian “soil”), and dust of Mars.
Size and Location
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. From an average distance of 142 million miles (228 million kilometers), Mars is 1.5 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. Mars can be found in space, but if you want to be more specific it's the fourth planet from the Sun in our Solar System, which itself is in the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way. Mars is the outermost terrestrial planet, outside Earth’s orbit. Mars is and the second-smallest planet of the Solar System after Mercury, having a diameter of 6.779 km / 4.212 mi. Neptune and Uranus have around 7.2 times the diameter of Mars. Saturn, on the other hand, has 17.1 times its diameter. It is half the size of Earth. It is almost 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) wide, which is a little more than half the width of Earth. Its total size is about 15% of Earth's volume. Since a lot of Earth is covered by water, the land area on Mars is almost as big as all the land on Earth. With a radius of 2,106 miles (3,390 kilometers), Mars is about half the size of Earth. The diameter of Mars is 6,790km (4,220 miles), making it roughly half the size of Earth and twice as big as the Moon. Although Earth is twice as big as Mars, it is around ten times heavier! Around six Mars-sized planets would fit the volume of Earth. Mars is around two times smaller than Earth.
Observing Mars from Earth
You can sometimes spot Mars from Earth! As the two planets orbit around the Sun, Mars becomes more visible from here on Earth. Mars will be harder to spot at different orbit stages, and a telescope is the best way to catch a glimpse. Mars is visible in the night sky with the naked eye, so it's impossible to say exactly when anybody first saw it. There are reports of it being sighted by the ancient Egyptians two millennia BCE. Mars is visible to the naked eye, and as such, you can see it without the use of a telescope or binoculars. The first time someone looked at Mars through a telescope was in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. In 1610, Galileo Galilei was the first to see Mars through a telescope. People have observed Mars for centuries. The best times to see Mars are during "oppositions," when the planet is closest to Earth. These happen every couple of years.
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Moons of Mars
Mars has two moons. Did you know? Mars has two moons! Mars also has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Phobos is the larger of the two but it is still tiny, with a radius of around 11km. Both moons were named after the Greek gods (and twin sons of the god Mars) of fear and terror respectively. Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, that may be captured asteroids. Phobos, the innermost and larger moon, is heavily cratered, with deep grooves on its surface. Deimos is about half as big as Phobos and orbits two and a half times farther away from Mars. Phobos is slowly descending upon Mars, and scientists believe that one day it will crash on the Red Planet.
Climate and Temperature
Looking at Mars, you might guess by its reddish color that it would have a hot climate, but the temperatures vary immensely and are often freezing! On average, it’s around -85°F on the planet, with temperatures reaching 69.8°F during summer and plummeting to -243°F closer to the Poles. Mars is a cold desert world. Mars is not the sort of place you want to go on a summer holiday. After a months-long journey, you will be welcomed by a maximum temperature of around 20°C on the equator in summer. Down at the poles, Mars can get as cold as -125°C. The average temperature on Mars is minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit - way below freezing. The temperature on Mars can be as high as 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) or as low as about -225 degrees Fahrenheit (-153 degrees Celsius). And because the atmosphere is so thin, heat from the Sun easily escapes this planet. Temperatures on Mars's surface can vary a lot. They range from lows of about −143 °C (−225 °F) (at the winter polar caps) to highs of up to 35 °C (95 °F) (in equatorial summer). This wide temperature range is mainly because of the thin atmosphere, which can't hold much heat from the Sun.
Travel Time to Mars
Ever wondered, “How long does it take to get to Mars?” So have we! On average, it would take around seven months to reach Mars from Earth if traveling at almost 24,855 miles per hour. That depends on when you travel and how you plan on getting there. As the distance between Earth and Mars is constantly changing, so too does the amount of time it takes to get there. At their closest approach, Mars is only 54.6 million kilometres (33.9 million miles) away from the Earth. At their furthest, there are some 400 million km (250 million miles) between them. Due to their elliptical orbits, the distance between Mars and Earth is always changing as they spin around the Sun. The average distance from the Sun is about 230 million km (143 million mi). As Mars is smaller than Earth, the effect of gravity is much weaker. The planets closest to Mars, its neighbors, are Earth and Jupiter.
Exploring Mars with Robots
NASA is using robots to explore Mars! Several missions have orbited, landed on, or roved around on Mars: InSight, MAVEN, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and many more! Mars is the only planet we have sent rovers to. They drive around Mars, taking pictures and measurements. Mars is currently home to 23 robots, with more planned in the future. Only three are currently operational, NASA's Curiosity rover, Perseverance rover, and Ingenuity helicopter. While there are as many as 23 robots on the surface of Mars, many either crash-landed on the surface or broke up on entry. Many missions were sent to Mars, so many that the Red Planet is theoretically populated with robots. As of 2023, Mars has ten working spacecraft. Eight are orbiting Mars: 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, the Hope orbiter, and the Tianwen-1 orbiter. Both the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express continued exploring with new tools and supported lander missions.
Martian Day and Year
The average day on Mars is 24 hours and 36 minutes - not much longer than here on Earth. One day on Mars lasts 24.6 hours. As Mars orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 24.6 hours, which is very similar to one day on Earth (23.9 hours). One day on Mars, known as a 'sol', lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 Earth seconds. A Martian day is called a sol, and it's a little longer than an Earth day. However, a year on Mars is equal to 678 Earth days! One year on Mars is 687 Earth days. It takes 687 Earth days for Mars to orbit the Sun once.
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Geological Features
The largest canyon on Mars is called Valles Marineris, which stretches more than 2,500 miles. A large canyon system called Valles Marineris is long enough to stretch from California to New York - more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers). This Martian canyon is 200 miles (320 kilometers) at its widest and 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) at its deepest. This infographic uses composite orbiter images and an outline of the United States to show the scale of the Valles Marineris (a canyon system more than 2,000 miles long!). Swipe left and right to see how big this canyon system is compared to the United States. Valles Marineris. This is the third largest canyon system in the Solar System, stretching 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) long. Mars is home to the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons. It’s called Olympus Mons and stands a whopping 16 miles high - three times taller than Mt. Everest. The tallest volcano/mountain in the Solar System is located on Mars. Olympus Mons is the tallest mountain in the Solar System, stretching 21,229m above the surface of the planet. Mars is a rocky planet, covered in impact craters, mountains, volcanoes and deep canyons stretching thousands of miles. The surface of the Red Planet isn’t active, however, its volcanoes are dead. The shield volcano Olympus Mons (meaning Mount Olympus) is an extinct volcano. It is located in a huge upland region called Tharsis, which has several other large volcanoes.
The Presence of Water
There is, in fact, water on Mars. There are signs of ancient floods on Mars, but now water mostly exists in icy dirt and thin clouds. It can be found as icy dirt below the surface in the Polar regions and traces of salty liquid water on hillsides. There is evidence of liquid salty water in the ground, especially on hillsides. Scientists want to know if Mars may have had living things in the past. Mars appears to have had a watery past, with ancient river valley networks, deltas, and lakebeds, as well as rocks and minerals on the surface that could only have formed in liquid water. There is water on Mars today, but the Martian atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist for long on the surface. Liquid water is essential for life. So, if water was present on Mars, it would increase the chances of life having evolved there. Early orbiters found signs of possible river valleys and erosion in many areas. In the southern part of Mars, they saw branched streams. Since then, rovers and orbiters have looked even closer. They have now proven that water was on the surface a long time ago. Liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars for long periods. This is because the atmospheric pressure is very low, less than 1% of Earth's. However, it might exist for short times at the lowest places on the planet. The two polar ice caps seem to be mostly made of water ice. In November 2016, NASA announced a large amount of underground ice in a region of Mars called Utopia Planitia. Mars does not have any liquid water on its surface right now. But features called landforms strongly suggest that liquid water once flowed there. Huge areas of ground have been scraped and eroded. These are known as 'outflow channels'. Like Earth, Mars has ice caps at its poles. However, they are made of frozen carbon dioxide as well as water ice. During the Martian winter at each pole, the ice cap grows larger. This happens as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere freezes onto it. The cap then shrinks again during the Martian summer. Oceans and lakes may have existed on Mars long ago, but it seems that water was only around for a short period.
Dust Storms
It can get so windy on Mars that dust storms can cover most of the planet! Mars’ atmosphere has clouds and wind just like Earth. Sometimes the wind blows the red dust into a dust storm. Spiraling dust storms-called dust devils-can look like tornadoes. Mars’ large storms sometimes cover the entire planet. Despite the thin Mars atmosphere, the planet is still capable of clouds and weather. In fact, when it comes to wind, Mars has the biggest dust storms on all of the planets in the Solar System. Occasionally, winds on Mars are strong enough to create dust storms that cover much of the planet. When Mars gets closest to the Sun, its atmosphere can create huge dust storms. Mars has the biggest dust storms in the Solar System. These storms can be small, covering only a small area, or they can be so massive that they cover the entire planet in dust clouds. Martian dust storms can last for hundreds of days. Winds can reach speeds of up to 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph). These storms have also been shown to make the whole planet warmer.
Gravity on Mars
There’s around 60 percent less gravity on Mars than on Earth. If you were on Mars, you would feel much lighter! Mars's gravity is only about two-fifths as strong as Earth's. This means you could lift objects that weigh almost three times more than you could on Earth. However, some things would still be tricky. Even though a big rock would weigh less, it would still have the same mass.
Mars Survival Simulation
Want to visit Mars? It might be possible one day. Split your class into small groups and task them with creating a survival kit for living on Mars. Using the list of facts as a base, students can decide what they’ll need specific to the planet; for example, a spacesuit to protect against the harsh cold and materials to build shelter from dust storms.
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Martian Atmosphere
Mars has a very thin atmosphere made mostly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon. It has a very thin atmosphere made mostly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon. It has a very thin atmosphere. Scientists have also found Methane in the Martian atmosphere. Methane doesn't last long in Mars's atmosphere (only 0.6 to 4 years). So, its presence means there must be something actively producing it. Possible sources include volcanic activity, comet impacts, or even tiny living things called microbes. Because Mars's atmosphere is so thin, it can't protect the planet from meteors. The atmosphere on Mars is quite dusty. It contains tiny particles that make the Martian sky look a tawny (orange-brown) color when you see it from the surface. It can even look pink because of iron oxide (rust) particles floating in it. Weirdly, the colour of the sky on Mars is the opposite of Earth, being blue towards sunset and sunrise and reddish-pink during the day. Mars has a thin but active atmosphere.
The Search for Life
Scientists don't expect to find living things currently thriving on Mars. In 1960, the Soviet Union was the first country to attempt a flyby of Mars with 1M (known in the West as Marsnik) but the mission was unsuccessful. Alas, there have been no reported sightings of little green men (yet), but what has been discovered on Mars' surface is evidence of persistent liquid water, microbe-supporting chemistry, organic molecules, active methane and rocks. However, in 1894, W. W. Campbell at Lick Observatory found that if water vapor or oxygen were in Mars's atmosphere, there were too few to detect with the tools available then. This observation went against many measurements at the time and wasn't widely accepted. Campbell and V. M. Slipher repeated the study in 1909 with better instruments, getting the same results. It wasn't until W. S. Adams confirmed these findings in 1925 that the idea of Earth-like life on Mars was finally disproven. Today, scientists think that for a planet to support life, it needs liquid water on its surface. This usually means the planet must be in the "circumstellar habitable zone" around its star. For our Sun, this zone is thought to extend from Earth's orbit to about Mars's orbit. During its closest approach to the Sun, Mars enters this zone.
Mars's Place in History
People have been watching and recording Mars for a very long time. Babylonian astronomers made detailed notes about Mars's location. They even used math to predict where the planet would be in the future. Ancient Greek philosophers and astronomers thought Earth was the center of the solar system. They used this idea to explain how planets moved. Later, astronomers in India and Islamic countries estimated Mars's size and how far it was from Earth. In the 1500s, Nicholas Copernicus suggested a new idea. He said that planets orbit the Sun in circles. This "heliocentric" model (Sun-centered) was the start of modern astronomy. Later, Johannes Kepler improved this idea. In Ancient Greece, the planet was called Πυρόεις, or Ares. In the 300s BCE, Aristotle noticed Mars disappear behind the Moon during an occultation. This showed that Mars was farther away than the Moon. Ptolemy, a Greek living in Alexandria, tried to explain Mars's orbit. His work was put into a book called the Almagest, which was the main astronomy book for 1,400 years. Ancient Chinese writings also show that Chinese astronomers knew about Mars by the 300s BCE. In the 1600s, Tycho Brahe measured Mars's daily shift in position. Johannes Kepler used this data to figure out Mars's distance from the Sun. Kepler also discovered that Mars orbits the Sun in an ellipse, not a perfect circle. He also showed that Mars speeds up when it's closer to the Sun and slows down when it's farther away. This is due to the conservation of angular momentum. In 1672, Giovanni Domenico Cassini tried to measure the distance between the Sun and Earth using Mars. Early measurements were difficult because the telescopes weren't very good. The only time Mars was seen hidden by Venus was on October 13, 1590. By the 1800s, telescopes were good enough to see features on Mars's surface. On September 5, 1877, Mars was very close to Earth. The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli used a 22-centimetre (8.7 in) telescope to create the first detailed map of Mars. These maps famously showed features he called canali. This word means "channels" or "grooves," but it was wrongly translated in English as "canals." These canali were thought to be long, straight lines on Mars's surface, and he named them after famous rivers on Earth. Influenced by these observations, an American named Percival Lowell built an observatory with large telescopes. He used it to study Mars in 1894 and later. He wrote several books about Mars and life there, which greatly influenced the public. The idea that Mars had seasons (with polar caps shrinking and dark areas forming) combined with the "canals" led to many people believing there was life on Mars. They thought Mars had huge seas and plants. But as bigger telescopes were used, fewer long, straight canali were seen.
Current and Future Missions
Many crewless spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars. The Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, India, the United Arab Emirates, and China have all sent missions to study Mars's surface, climate, and geology. NASA's Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to visit Mars. Launched on November 28, 1964, it flew closest to the planet on July 15, 1965. Once spacecraft like NASA's Mariner missions (in the 1960s and 1970s) visited Mars, many old ideas about the planet changed completely. After the Viking experiments looking for life, most scientists agreed that Mars was a lifeless planet. Data from Mariner 9 and Viking helped create better maps of Mars. The Mars Global Surveyor mission (1996-2006) made very detailed maps of Mars's surface, magnetic field, and minerals. These maps are available online, for example, on Google Mars. As of February 2024, over seven tons of debris from these missions have reached Mars. In April 2024, NASA chose several companies to start studying how to use commercial services to help robotic science on Mars. The Rosalind Franklin rover mission, which will search for signs of past life. It was supposed to launch in 2018 but has been delayed, with the earliest launch now in 2028. There was even a flying helicopter on Mars. Seriously! The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, successfully tested powered, controlled flight on another world for the first time. It hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover and worked with the rover to explore Mars. Ingenuity was designed as a tech demo expected to fly no more than five times over 30 days. It ended its mission in early 2024 having completed 72 flights in just under three years.
A Comparison with Earth
Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons, and weather. It has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons, and weather. In many ways, Mars can be considered Earth’s brother. Test your students’ knowledge of Mars and the Earth using a Venn Diagram template to weigh the similarities and differences between the two planets. Mars' axis of rotation is tilted 25 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. This is another similarity with Earth, which has an axial tilt of 23.4 degrees. Like Earth, Mars has distinct seasons, but they last longer than seasons here on Earth since Mars takes longer to orbit the Sun (because it's farther away). The longest season on Mars is spring, which lasts for 194 days. Autumn in the northern hemisphere (spring in the southern) is the shortest at 142 days. This means it has four different seasons. Of all the planets in the Solar System, Mars's seasons are the most like Earth's. This is because their rotational axes are tilted by similar amounts. Mars and Earth have very similar lengths of day.
More Interesting Facts
Mars is as old as the rest of the Solar System, making it a sprightly 4.6 billion years old. Mars was once a warm, wet planet thanks to an atmosphere as thick as Earth's, but those days are long gone. Now it's a dusty old place due to atmospheric erosion, caused by a process known as 'sputtering'. Mars has what is known as an eccentric orbit, which means it's not perfectly circular around the Sun. That means the distance between the two is always changing, but at their closest it is 206 million km, while its furthest is 249 million km. Hellas Planitia is a huge crater on Mars created from an ancient impact. After planets formed, they all went through a period called the "Late Heavy Bombardment". About 60% of Mars's surface shows signs of impacts from that time. Mars has many impact craters. A total of 43,000 craters with a diameter of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) or more have been found. Because Mars is smaller than Earth, the chance of an object hitting it is about half that of Earth. However, Mars is closer to the asteroid belt, so it has a higher chance of being hit by objects from there. Mars is also more likely to be hit by short-period comets (those that orbit within Jupiter's path). Even so, there are far fewer craters on Mars compared to the Moon. Some meteorites hit Mars with so much force that pieces of Mars flew into space, and some even reached Earth! Rocks found on Earth sometimes have chemicals that are exactly like those in Martian rocks. These rocks also look like they fell very quickly through the atmosphere. NASA keeps a list of 34 Mars meteorites. These are meteorites that originally came from Mars. Studies at NASA's Johnson Space Center show that at least three of these meteorites might contain signs of past life on Mars. These signs are tiny structures that look like fossilized bacteria. Asteroids. Many, many asteroids. The majority of the Solar System's known asteroids lie between Mars and Jupiter, with between 1.1 and 1.9 million of them larger than a kilometre in diameter. Terraforming means changing a planet's surface and atmosphere to be more like Earth's and therefore a suitable place to live. However, for it to work we need carbon dioxide, and Mars just doesn't have enough going spare.
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