Interesting Facts About Mars

Mars. The fourth planet from the sun. Mars has many names from many different civilizations. The Egyptians first called it Har dècher, or “The Red One”. The Romans named their god of war from Mars. The Greeks also did the same thing as the Romans, but called him by the planets name. The Hebrews also had a very different name for the fourth planet. They called it Ma’adim, or “The one who Blushes”. Many ancient civilizations believed that the red coloring of the planet was blood. The Egyptians called Mars the “backwards traveller” because the planet seemed to move backwards throughout the year.

The atmosphere of Mars is very unlike our own planet. The atmosphere is mostly contained of carbon dioxide. The air is so thin that water cannot exist in liquid form on the surface. Since Mars does not have an ozone layer to protect the surface, the surface is constantly affected by radiation every time the sun rises. The atmosphere contains 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, and very little traces of oxygen. If you went onto the surface of Mars without a space suit, the oxygen in your blood would literally turn into bubbles, therefore causing immediate death. Because the atmosphere is so tiny, the surface temperature on Mars is much lower than on Earth. The average temperature on Mars is minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mars is about 230 million km from the sun. This changes slightly due to the oval-like orbit around the sun. Mars takes 687 Earth days to travel around the sun, twice as much as an Earth year. A year on Mars is 1.8 Earth years, or 320 days. If you drove a car at 60 mph on the surface of Mars, it would take you 209 hrs to travel around Mars. On the surface of Mars, there is a canyon that is 2,500 miles long. This is almost ten times longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona! This is also the largest known crevice in the known solar system.  Also, Mars is also the world record holder to the tallest peak. This peak is 15 miles high! That is 3 times higher than Mount Everest! The diameter is the size of Arizona, 375 miles. Mars does not have the crust like Earth. Mars’ crust is made of one peice, unlike the many different peices like Earth.