We have some great facts about Mars here for you. The planet has been the focus of intrigue for a long time, spawning many horror and science fiction stories, video games, and songs. Have you wondered about the mysterious Red Planet yourself, and what some interesting details about it may be?
Allow us to introduce you to one of our favourite planets.
1 Mars has two moons.
The first of the facts about Mars is that the planet has two moons named Phobos and Deimos. Phobos has a diameter of 22.2 km (13.8 miles), while Deimos’ diameter is 12.6km (7.8 miles)
For a little perspective, Earth’s moon has a diameter of 3,474 km. This means that the radius of Phobos is 156 times smaller than that of our moon, and the radius of Diemos is 275.7 smaller.
2 Mars is home to the largest canyon in the solar system
The Valles Marineris on Mars is indeed an impressive geological feature. Stretching more than 4,000 km (3,000 miles) in length, measuring up to 200km (120 miles) in width in certain areas, and plunging as deep as 7 km (4.3 miles), it truly commands attention.
This remarkable canyon system was first brought to light in 1971–1972, and it earned its name from the Mariner 9 Mars orbiter, the spacecraft responsible for its discovery.
You could fit nearly nine 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 happened in 1976 with the Viking program, operated by NASA. They successfully landed two spacecraft called Viking 1 and Viking 2. Viking 1 was operational for six years, while Viking 2 functioned for three years. The Viking landers were the first to transmit colour panoramas of Mars.
Another of the great facts about Mars is that In 1971 and 1974, several Soviet probes, named Mars 2, Mars 3, and Mars 6, attempted to land on Mars. Sadly, all of them encountered failures during the landing process. Mars 2 and Mars 3 failed during descent, while Mars 6 failed during descent but managed to send back some corrupted atmospheric data.
4 The surface features of Mars were first named after letters
Johann Heinrich Mädler and Wilhelm Beer were the first Areographers (areography is the geography of Mars). In 1840, after 10 years of observations, they drew the first map of Mars. Instead of names, they gave marking letters. For example, Meridan Bay was “Feature a”.
Today there is a naming convention, as follows:
- Albedo Features (dark and light features that can be seen through an 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 a god of war.
One of the more interesting facts about Mars is that it is red because of the iron minerals in its soil. These minerals have oxidised (rusted). In 2009, Danish scientists proposed that dust storms caused the iron to rust by breaking down quartz crystals present on the surface.
6 Something different for our facts about Mars: Active robots
Curiosity landed on Aug 6, 2012. It has currently been travelling for 8 years covering up to 600 feet (200 meters) per day.
There have been four robots known as rovers, on Mars to help with exploration:
- Sojourner Truth – arrived on Mars on 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 accidentally landed inside a crater, then a four-month dust storm covered its solar panels and the rover lost contact on Feb 12, 2019.
7 Mars might end up with rings
Phobos, one of Mars’ moons, is predicted to collide with the planet in 50 million years. The moon’s orbit is gradually getting closer to Mars at a rate of 1.8 meters (or six feet) per year.
If the scientist’s prediction comes true, Mars will be the only terrestrial planet with rings.
8 Mars’ seasons are different lengths
Mars has seasons of varying length due to its elliptical orbit; the distance from the sun changes at different points. Earth, on the other hand, has evenly spread seasons that last for three months, or one-quarter of the year, because it has a nearly circular orbit.
Going from winter to spring on Mars can be a very dramatic transition. 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, you would weigh 3.78 stone on Mars.
Struggle to dunk 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
Olympus Mons is actually a volcano that stands 24 km high. It may only be a few million years old and still active, therefore having the potential to erupt. The mountain was originally spotted by scientist Giovanni Schiaparelli 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 its name was changed to Olympus Mons.
Olympus Mons is approximately three times the height of Mount Everest; Earth’s tallest mountain peak stands at 8.84 km. It also dwarfs Earth’s largest volcano, Mouna Loa. Located in Hawaii, it is mostly submerged. From sea floor to peak, it is 9.17 km tall.
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