35 Amazing facts about Mars

Mars is often described as the “Red Planet” and named after the Roman god of war.  It is the fourth nearest planet to the Sun.  Mars atmosphere mostly contains carbon dioxide.

Amazing facts about Mars

1.  Mars has only 37% of  Earth’s gravitational force because of less mass.

2.  Mars has only 15% of the Earth’s volume but has the same landmass approximately.

3.  Mars has the second tallest mountain in the solar system which is Olympus Mons, a volcano.  It is 600 km in diameter and 21 km high, and formed over billions of years ago and stands three times as tall as Mount Everest.

4.  Out of 51 missions to Mars only 21 missions have been successful which includes flyby, orbiter, lander, rover, sample return mission types.

5.  The mission to mars is USSR’s Marsnik 1, which was launched in 1960.

6.  Mars dust storms are largest in the solar system and can last for months, which cover the entire planet at a maximum speed of 125 mph.

7.  Mars orbital path is elliptical, oval-shaped around the sun and is more elongated than most other planets.

8.  Mars atmosphere which is very thin contains mostly carbon dioxide and it is even present in solid form(dry ice) in polar region.

9.  Galileo Galilei, was the first person to observe Mars with a telescope and within a century, scientists discovered its polar ice caps.

10.  Mars axis is tilted away from the sun, that is why Mars has all four seasons like that of Earth.

11.  March, is named after the planet Mars.

12.  The ancient Greeks thought that Mars was one of the five traveling stars that revolved around the Earth and Earth was the center of the universe.

13.  Mars contains large amounts of iron oxide, which is the reason for Mars to be red in color.

14.  Human survival is impossible on Mars, due to extreme temperatures and its thin atmosphere, it has only 1% of the atmospheric pressure.  Without space suit, the oxygen in your blood would turn into bubbles due to low pressure, which cause death.

15.  It would take 271 years and 221 days to get to Mars, if you were driving your car at 60 mph from Earth.

16.  Mars don’t have an Ozone layer like Earth, due to this Mars has lethal dose of radiation during sun rise.

17.  Mars is formed about 4.5 billion years ago and is the last terrestrial planet in the solar system.

18.  Mars is the third nearest neighbor to Earth which is 34 million miles away from Earth, the nearest one to Earth is the Moon and the next one is Venus.

19.  Almost 20% of the air freezes on Mars, during winter.

20.  Phobos rises in the West, where as Deimos rises in the East.  For Deimos it takes 2.7 days to rise and set, where as for Phobos it is 0.5 day.

21.  Phobos orbits so close to Mars and scientists believe that it would either break up and form small ring around the planet or crash into the planet.

22.  Mars has no magnetic field like Earth, this indicates that it doesn’t have a molten metal core.

23.  Before missions to Mars scientist believe that it has large amount of water resources, but the U.S. spacecraft Mariner 4 sent 22 images to Earth, which disappointed them, as there is no water.

24.  Scientists were worried about contaminating the Mars environment with microbes from Earth, during the Viking missions to Mars.

25.  There are Martian meteors that are known to exist on Earth.  On conducting lot experiments and based on studies, scientists thought that there are water and life is present on Mars.

26.  Mars has large amounts of water in the form of ice in the polar caps, if melted into a liquid form, the amount of water in the southern polar cap would cover about 36 feet.

27.  Observations indicated that polar caps were mostly frozen water with a thin layer of carbon dioxide, previously it was believed that it contains mostly carbon dioxide as dry ice.

28.  Yogi, Shark, Moe, Stimpy, Bamacle bill and Cabbage Patch are the unofficial names of many rocks on the surface of Mars. Scientists chose these names as they are easy to remember.

Statistical facts about Mars

29.  Mars is lighter than Earth, it has a mass of 641,693,000,000,000 billion kg.

30.  Mars polar diameter is 6,755 kilometers.

31.  Mars equatorial diameter is 6,805 kilometers.

32.   Mars has two satellites, which are Deimos and Phobos.

33.  Mars orbit period is 686.98 Earth days, which is 1.88 Earth years.

34.  Mars orbit distance is 227,943,824 kilometers.

35.  Surface temperature on Mars ranges from -87 °C to -5 °C.

Also read: Amazing facts about Earth, Amazing facts about Moon,Amazing facts about Sun and Amazing facts about the Universe.