Rusty red floating sphere Mars, is a planet that orbits the Sun in our solar system it is, in fact, a fourth planet from the Sun after the earth and before Jupiter. It's also the second-smallest planet in the solar system after mercury. Mars measures up at around 201,344 kilometers in circumference making it significantly smaller than the earth. There were many mission to the mars in search for the existence of human life. Future Astrobiology missions to Mars are also planned to search for evidence of past life on Mars. We'll cover some of the amazing facts about those missions. There are also many conspiracy theories about mars which we'll also discuss. How did Mars get it to wresting red complexion? why was NASA sued for landing robots on the Martian surface? We are gonna show you 80 interesting facts about Mars.
1. Mars is far less tectonically active than Earth.
2. From Mars, the Sun appears about half the size as it does on earth.
3. Martian year is roughly 88 percent longer than one year on earth.
4. A day on Mars is slightly longer than a day here on earth blasting around 24 hours and 40 minutes.
5. Mars is about 15% of the Earth's volume yet only 11% of Earth's mass, this means that not only is Mars smaller than Earth it also is less dense.
6. Despite the fact that Mars is much smaller than Earth the two planets actually have roughly the same amount of land this is because around two-thirds of the earth is covered with oceans.
7. Because of its diminished size, the gravity on Mars is slightly less than 40% as strong as the gravity we experienced on earth.
8. Mars is a torus real planet meaning it is composed primarily of rocks and metals and has a hard crusty surface upon which you could stand.
9. However, Mars wasn't always the arid red desert that it is today there is clear evidence that liquid water flowed in streams and rivers across the surface of the planet hundreds of millions of years ago and once upon a time the planet even had oceans.
10. Mar's red color is caused by iron oxides, it's actually only skin-deep and even in the thickest areas is probably no deep than around two meters or seven feet.
11. Mars regularly hosts the largest dust storms in the entire solar system they can last for months and sometimes cover the entire planet in a swirling red dust cloud.
12. Mars looks like the skin of a 15th-century smallpox survivor is because it's situated far closer to the asteroid belt and has a much higher chance of being pummeled by space rocks leaving behind hundreds upon thousands of craters.
13. Craters on Mars that are under 60 kilometers in diameter are named after towns on earth with populations under 100,000, for example, there's a 28 kilometer wide Martian crater called Tooting named after the London suburb of the same name.
14. Martian craters larger than 60 kilometers are named after scientists, writers and others who have contributed to the study observation and exploration of Mars, for example, there are craters named after Nicholas Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin
15. Traditionally the crust of Mars is thought to be comprised of one piece, though recent research suggests that this may not actually be the case. Mars could be made up of two large plates.
16. The temperature on Mars is significantly more variable than it is on earth with mild highs of 70 degrees Fahrenheit and harrowing lows of minus 225 degrees Fahrenheit this works out to an average Martian surface temperature of roughly minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit or hard pass.
17. The two polar ice caps on Mars appear to be largely made of water. Mars and Earth are the only known planets to have polar ice caps.
18. The northern cap is up to two miles deep and covers an area significantly larger than the U.S. state of Texas.
19. There's so much water held in Mars a southern polar ice cap that if it melted water would cover the planet's entire surface in an ocean around 11 meters deep.
20. Mars has a thin atmosphere that consists mostly of carbon dioxide, argon, nitrogen, and a very small amount of oxygen and water vapor.
21. As a result of Mars's thin atmosphere, liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars, except at the lowest elevations for a very short period of time before quickly evaporating.
22. Because Mars has hardly any atmosphere, its sunrises and sunsets appear blue rather than traditional orange and red.
23. Though Mars rotates slightly faster than Earth it takes its time orbiting the Sun making a complete orbit around the sun once every 687 Earth days.
24. Mars orbits the Sun is an average distance of around 142 million miles a distance so large that it's pretty much impossible to fathom.
25. The oval shape orbit of Mars is more eccentric than most of the planet's orbits.
26. Mars also has an axial tilt of about 25 degrees and very similar to Earth's 23.5 degrees.
27. Since Mars has no large moon spinning around it to stabilize its rotation Mars is tilted far more wobbly than Earth's.
28. Mars lacks a magnetic field indicating that it does not possess a lovely molten metal core like Earth does. However, scientists believe that the planet did have a magnetic field at one point probably around four billion years ago.
29. The lack of a magnetic field leaves the red planet without protection against deadly radiation from cosmic rays and solar flares.
30. On the 27th of August 2003, Mars made its closest approach to earth in almost 60,000 years and the next time it will be back close to us again on the 28th of August 2287.
31. Mars is one of five planets in our solar system that are visible from Earth to the naked eye, the others being Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury.
32. Mars is home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and highest known mountain in the solar system.
33. Mars is also home to Valles Marineris, one of the longest and the deepest canyon systems in the entire solar system. It stretches for approximately over 2,485 miles, it's also up to 125 miles wide and has a maximum depth of 4.3 miles.
34. There are a number of large holes on Arsia Mons, a large Martian volcano that holes up to 150 meters across and so deep that we still cannot see the bottom of them they are thought to be the product of ancient lava flows or gateways to another dimension.
35. Mars also has two moons Phobos and Deimos which cheerfully mean fear and threat respectively these names come from the twin gods who accompanied Mars and Ares into battle.
36. Phobos and Deimos are small and irregular shaped. Phobos is roughly two hundred two kilometers across. while Deimos is about 12 kilometers and is thought to be asteroids captured by Mars as a gravitational pull.
37. Scientists predict that Phobos will eventually be pulled out of orbit by Mar's gravity and brought crashing to the planet's surface this will occur in roughly 7 million years.
38. The smaller of Mars's moons Deimos is so tiny that it has to escape velocity by only 5.2 m/s, this means that in the unlikely event that you ever find yourself stranded on Deimos you could blast off from its surface simply by taking a running jump.
39. The first record of humanity's awareness of Mars dates back to 1534 BC when it was spotted by ancient Egyptian astronomers.
40. Egyptians gave Mars its very first recorded name Har Decher meaning the red one. They also referred to Mars as the backward traveler because the planet's slobo orbit produces apparent retrograde motion appearing to move it backward through the sky every 25 months.
41. Ancient Chinese astronomers used to call Mars the fire star.
42. The ancient Babylonian name for Mars was Nergal meaning star of death.
43. The ancient Hebrews refer to Mars as Ma'adim meaning the one who blushes.
44. The Greeks and Romans named the planet after the respective gods of war Ares and Mars. The Roman name Mars is the name we use in English.
45. The ancient Greeks believed that the earth was the center of the entire universe and that Mars was one of five stars that orbits it the others being Venus Jupiter Saturn and mercury.
46. In the mid 16th century the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe produced the first accurate calculations of Mars position in the solar system without using a telescope.
47. In 1609, several years after the death of Tycho Brahe the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilee observed Mars with a telescope.
48. A number of missions have taken human technology to Mars. The first true Mars mission success was NASA's Mariner 4 flyby in 1965, which produced the very first close-up pictures of the Martian surface.
49. In November of 1971 the NASA Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars after months of dust storms cleared, Mariner 9 began to transmit thousands of images of Mars back to earth revealing expansive canyons, colossal volcanoes, and dried-up riverbeds.
50. On the 20th of July 1976, NASA's Viking 1 became the first spacecraft to land intact and operational on the surface of Mars followed by the Viking 2 a few weeks later in September. Together the Viking landers returned the first color pictures of the planet providing humanity with an even better view of our neighboring worlds.
51. The first human-built object to make physical contact with Mars go to the Soviet Union's Mars 2 space probe which violently crashed into the planet surface in November of 1971 Orcs.
52. During the Viking missions, NASA scientists were genuinely worried about contaminating the environment on Mars with microbes from Earth.
53. In 1996, the United States launched the Mars Pathfinder named Sojourner, which landed on Mars on the 4th of July 1997 America's Independence Day and rolled around on Mars for 83 days.
54. The Sojourner collected and studied Martian rocks moving at a speed of only a few centimeters per second due to a safety feature to prevent the rover from getting stuck.
55. In 1999 NASA lost a Mars probe called the Mars climate orbiter costing 125 million dollars.
56. NASA's Spirit rover which landed on Mars in early 2004 has been hit by dust devils on the surface of Mars several times these Martian mini-tornadoes left the rover unharmed and actually cleaned its solar panels.
57. The Opportunity rover landed on Mars in 2004 with a planned mission duration of roughly 91 days is still functioning and remains active having surpassed its design lifespan but over 14 years as of May 2018, over this period the rover has traveled over 28 miles.
58. Aluminum recovered on the destroyed World Trade Center towers after the 9/11 terrorist attacks were used on NASA's Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity as a tribute to the victims.
59. The Curiosity rover which was launched into space in November 2011 and landed on Mars in August of 2012 carries with it a 1909 Lincoln penny. The coin is used as part of a calibration target to ensure the accuracy of photographs.
60. Because of humanity's various space missions, Mars is populated entirely by robots.
61. On the 24th of September 2014 the Indian Space Research Organisation to Mars orbiter mission space probe entered its orbit of Mars in doing so India became the first nation on earth to set spacecraft into Mars orbit on the very first try.
62. In 2012 a small private company in the Netherlands called Mars One announced its plan to colonize Mars by the mid-2020s.
63. Over 100,000 people applied to be part of the Mars One program which would involve a one-way trip to colonize the planet in the coming years.
64. According to the 1967 United Nations treaty, nobody can own celestial bodies such as Mars or the moon.
65. Three men from Yemen sued NASA for trespassing on Mars, based on a claim that they inherited the planet from their ancestors roughly 3,000 years ago and shockingly that lawsuit didn't go anywhere.
66. Many notable rocks on the Martian surface have been given unofficial names for ease of discussion these names include Yogi, Pop Tart, Moe, barnacle bill, Half Dome, shark, Stimpy, and Cabbage Patch.
67. Meteorites that fell to earth and landed in Morocco during a meteor shower in 2011 had been confirmed to be of Martian origin. The rocks were thought to be ejected from the surface of the planet during an ancient asteroid impact.
68. One of the most well known Martian meteorites is known as Allen hills 84001 found in Allen Hills in Antarctica and it contains microscopic fossils of Martian bacteria.
69. Apparently the alkaline soil on Mars particularly good for growing vegetables like turnips and asparagus.
70. The German Aerospace Center has discovered that Earth's lichens can survive in simulated Mars conditions.
71. The astronomical symbol of Mars is formed by a circle with an arrow pointing diagonally upwards to the right. There's a base that looked like the shield and spear belonging to the god Mars and Ares.
72. Interestingly Mars has a flag, well a number of different people have designed flags for the red planet and none of them are official. But the most well-known Martin standard was designed by NASA engineer called Pascal Lee, his version of the Martian flag is a simple tricolor of red green and blue.
73. According to NASA a round trip to Mars from Earth will take roughly two and a half years.
74. According to the UK's Royal Mail sending a letter to Mars would cost roughly 15,500 dollars. Apparently, this would require over 18,000 first-class stamps or over 21,000 second-class stamps to achieve.
75. If you could somehow drive directly to Mars in a car traveling at a regular speed of 60 miles per hour it would roughly take you 271 years and 221 days to reach your destination.
76. The 2015 movie the Martian which starred Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars cost Murphy 109 million dollars to produce. India's Mars orbiter mission cost 73 million dollars meaning that a Hollywood movie about a space mission to Mars cost 36 million dollars more than the India's actual real space mission to Mars.
77. Every year the Internet is blighted by claims that Mars will appear in the sky on the 27th of August just as large as the moon. This is a ludicrous pile of anti-science hoaxes that began in an email in 2002 and has fooled so many people that the 27th of August is now known by some as Mars hoax day.
78. Some Mars conspiracies have claimed that Google images of Mars prove that someone possibly NASA has already sent humans to Mars. The images apparently show a fairly advanced Mars colony of white buildings powered by solar panels. However, the image was actually originated from an April Fool's joke in a blog post from Google Congrats guys you played yourself the chances of.
79. In 2008 NASA's Mars exploration rover spirit captured images which certain people claimed to show a humanoid finger on the surface of mars this turned out to be nothing more than a rock formation.
80. The most absurd conspiracy theory involving Mars claims that Mars is indeed populated but not by Martian aliens rather Mars is inhabited by human children who have been sent to the planet against their will to work as slaves. NASA ultimately found it necessary to deny these claims.
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