Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the seventh largest planet in the solar system
It orbits 227,940,000 km from the Sun
And has a diameter of 6,794 km.
The mass of the planet mars is 64219e23 kg
Mars is the name of the god of War(In Greek). The planet probably got this name due to its red color; Mars is also know as the Red Planet. The planet Mars has been known since prehistoric times.
The first spacecraft to visit Mars was Mariner 4 in 1965; others followed including Mars 2, the first spacecraft to land on Mars and the two Viking landers in 1976 . Mars Pathfinder landed successfully on Mars on 1997 July 4.
The average temperature on Mars is a cold -55 C or -67 F, Mars surface temperatures are
-133 C, -207 F at the winter pole to almost 27 C, 80 F on the other side during summer.
Though Mars is much smaller than Earth, its surface area is about the same as the land surface area of Earth.
Except for Earth, Mars has the most highly varied and interesting terrain of any of the planets, some of it quite spectacular.
Olympus Mons is the largest mountain in the Solar System rising 24 km above the surrounding plain. Its base is more than 500 km in diameter and is rimmed by a cliff 6km high.
Tharsis is a huge bulge on the Mars surface that is about 4000 km across and 10 km high.
Valles Marineris is a group of canyons 4000 km long and from 2 to 7 km deep.
Hellas Planitia is a crater in the southern hemisphere over 6km deep and 2000km in diameter.
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Much of the surface of Mars is very old and cratered, but there are also much younger valleys, ridges, hills and plains.
The southern hemisphere of Mars is full of cratered highlands somewhat similar to the Moon. In contrast, most of the northern hemisphere consists of plains which are much younger, lower in elevation and have a much more complex history.
The inside Mars not known about very much but the most likely scenario is that a inside Mars there is dense core about 1700 km in radius, a molten rocky mantle somewhat denser than the Earth's and a thin crust, and there probably is a small amount of Iron like Mercury and the Moon.
At the moment there is no evidence of current volcanic activity in Mars, but there is new evidence from Mars Global Surveyor that Mars may have had tectonic activity in its early history, comparing to Earth a whole lot more closely.
Early in its history, Mars was much more like Earth. As with Earth almost all of its carbon dioxide was used up to form carbonate rocks. But lacking the Earth's plate tectonics, Mars is unable to recycle any of this carbon dioxide back into its atmosphere and so cannot sustain a significant greenhouse effect. The surface of Mars is therefore much colder than the Earth would be at that distance from the Sun.
Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide 95.3% plus nitrogen 2.7%, argon 1.6% and traces of oxygen 0.15% and water 0.03%. The winds and vast dust storms in Mars on occasion engulf the entire planet for months.
Newly released images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor show
that the red planet is a different place today than it was two
years ago when the spacecraft arrived
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