Mars Facts

MARS FACTS

The home of interesting Mercury facts for kids and adults.

The Planet Mars Factfile

	Mars
Position from the Sun	4
Diameter	6,752 km
What is the mass?	0.11 Earth
How many moons?	2
How many rings	0
How far long is the orbit distance?	227,942,824 km
How long does it take to orbit the sun?	697 Days
Whats the temperature on Mars?	-87 to -5 °C
When was Mars discovered?	2nd Millenium BC
Who first discovered Mars?	Egyptian astronomers

10 Facts about Mars you didn't know.

1. Mars has two moons.

Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos.

Phobos diameter is 22.2 km (13.8 miles)

Diemos diameter is 12.6km (7.8 miles)

Did you know?

The Earth moon has a diameter of 3,474 km.

The radius of Phobos is 156 times smaller than Earth Moon.

The radius of Diemos is 275.7 times smaller than Earth Moon.

2. Mars is home to the largest canyon in the solar solar system.

The Valles Marineris on Mars is more than 4,000 km (3,000 miles) long, 200km (120 miles) wide in places and up to 7 km (4.3 miles) deep in places. It was discovered in 1971-1972 and named after the spacecraft that discovered it Mariner 9 Mars orbiter.

Did you know?

You could fit nearly 9 Grand Canyons within the Valles Marineris. The Grand Canyon is 446km long and up to 29 km wide.

3. The first successful landing on Mars was in 1976

The first successful landing on Mars was in 1976 by NASA operated space program Viking program. They successfully landed Viking 1 and Viking 2.

Viking 1 remained operational for six years, Viking 2 for three years. The Viking landers were the first to relay color panoramas of Mars.

Did you know?

The first to contact the surface of Mars were two Soviet probes named Mars 2, Mars 3 and Mars 6.

Mars 2 attempted landing on November 27 1971 but failed during descent.

Mars 3 attempted landing on December 2 1971 but failed approximately 20 seconds after landing.

Mars 6 attempted landing in 1974, however failed during descent but did relay some corrupted atmospheric data.

4. Mars surface features were originally named after letters.

Johann Heinrich Mädler and Wilhelm Beer were the first areographers. In 1840 after 10 years of observations, they drew the first map of Mars. Instead of names they gave markings letters. For example, Meridan Bay was feature "a".

Did you know?

Today there is a naming convention.

Albedo Features (dark and light features that can be seen through a Earth telescope) are named for classical mythology.
Craters larger than 60 km are named after deceased scientists and others who have contributed to the study of Mars.
Craters smaller than 60 km are named after towns and villages of the world with a population smaller than 100,000.
Large valleys are named for the words "mars" or "star" in various languages.
Small valleys are named for rivers.

5. Mars is named after the Roman God of war.

Mars was named by ancient Romans for their god of war because its red colour resembled blood. Other civilians such as Greeks associated the planet with Ares who was also god of war.

Did you know?

Mars is red due to the iron minerals in the Martian soil that have oxidised, or rusted. Although scientists are still researching why so much of the iron at its surface has oxidised.

In 2009, a group of Danish scientists suggested that Martian dust storms slowly rusted the iron by crumbling the quartz crystals that also exist on the surface.

6. Active robots on Mars

Curiosity landed on Aug 6, 2012. It has currently been travelling for 8 years covering up to 600 feet (200 meters) per day.

Did you know?

There have been four robots known as rovers on Mars to help with exploration.

Sojourner truth - arrived on Mars July 4, 1977 it was only designed to operate for one week but ended up operating for three months.

Spirit and Opportunity landed a couple of weeks apart in January 2004.

Spirit became stuck in some Martian sand and eventually failed in 2011.

Opportunity accidently landed inside a crater, a four month dust storm covered the solar panels and lost contact Feb 12, 2019.

Future robots due to launch are Mars2020 and ExoMars 2020 which is named after Rosalind Franklin.

7. Mars could potentially end up with rings.

In 50 million years, scientists have predicted that Phobos, one of it's moons will collide with Mars. Phobos orbit is slowly moving closer to Mars. This happens at a rate of six feet or 1.8 meters a year.

Did you know?

If the scientists prediction come true, Mars will be the only terrestrial planet with rings.

9. Mars' seasons are different lengths.

Mars' seasons vary in length this is because of the elliptical, egg shaped orbit where the distance from the sun differs at different points in its orbit.

On Earth, seasons are evenly spread over the year, lasting 3 months or one quarter of the year. This is because Earth has a near circular orbit.

Did you know?

Going from winter to spring on Mars can be a very dramatic transition. The dust storms in one area of the planet can quickly grow into planet wide storms.

9.You would weigh 37.8% less on Mars.

The gravitational force on Mars is much lower than on Earth. If you weighed 10 stone on earth, on Mars you would weigh 3.78 stone on Mars.

Did you know?

Struggle dunking a basketball on Earth? Because of the lower gravity, you could jump 1 meter off the ground and stay afloat for three seconds.

10. Mars is home to the highest mountain in our solar system.

It is actually a volcano, named Olympus Mons, stands 24 km high. It may only be a few million years old and still active, therefore having the potential to erupt. It was originally spotted by scientist Giovanni Schiaperelli in the second half of the 19th century who named it Nix Olympia.

It wasn't until 1971 when the Mariner 9 was able to capture pictures of the volcano that it changed name to Olympus Mons.

Did you know?

Olympus Mons as approximately three times the height of Mount Everest, Himalayas, Earths tallest mountain peak stands at 8.84 km.

Olympus Mons also dwarfs, Earths largest volcano named Mouna Loa. Located in Hawaii is actually mostly submerged. From sea floor to peak it is 9.17 km tall.