Our solar system is nicely positioned within the Milky Way Galaxy's Orion Arm. It is made up of several celestial elements such as the sun, a yellow dwarf star, eight planets, one dwarf planet, numerous confirmed and provisional moons, millions of asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and other celestial components. Our solar system's planets follow an elliptical journey around the sun, which is known as the orbit. There are the two primary zones of sun-orbiting planets. The “asteroid belt,” which runs between Mars and Jupiter, separates the two regions. The inner or terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and the outer planets or the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), accompanied by Pluto, a dwarf planet at the farthest orbit.
The planet Mars is named after the ancient Roman god of war, Ares. The Greeks called the planet Ares. The Romans and Greeks associated the planet with war because its color resembles the color of blood. Other civilizations such as The Egyptians called it "Her Desher," meaning "the red one." Until today, it is frequently called the "Red Planet". Mars has 2 moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after the Greek mythological twin characters Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror and dread) who accompanied their father Ares into battle. The red appearance of the planet comes from iron minerals in the Martian dirt oxidized, or rust, causing the surface to look red. A martian solar day has a duration of 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds and is known as a ‘sol’. It takes Mars 669.6 sols or 687 Earth’s day to complete a full orbit around the sun, making a year.
Mars is one of the inner planets and is placed the fourth planet from the sun. It is 42 million miles (228 million kilometers) away from the Sun. Calculations have it that sunlight takes 13 minutes to travel from the Sun to Mars. Mars is the second-smallest planet in the solar system with a radius of 2111 miles (3397 km) and a mass of 6.4171×10^23 kg. It also has a surface gravity of 3.721 m/s². About 4.5 billion years ago, Mars formed when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in and it has a central core, a rocky mantle, and a solid crust. Mars has a thin atmosphere filled with 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, and has traces of oxygen, carbon monoxide, water, methane, and other gases, along with a lot of dust. Mars has no ozone layer in its atmosphere as Earth does which means UV radiations from the Sun and astronomical sources can easily reach the surface and the Martian atmosphere has no warm layer corresponding to Earth's stratosphere.
Mars is the only planet beyond Earth that has been studied very thoroughly. The first observations of Mars were made as far back as the era of ancient Egypt over 4,000 years ago. As of today, NASA has robots and satellites to study the planet from all perspectives. NASA's Perseverance rover – the largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world, touched Mars on February 18, 2021. Two other NASA spacecraft already are at work on the surface. NASA's Curiosity rover is exploring Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. NASA's InSight, a stationary lander, is probing the interior of Mars from a site on a flat smooth plain called Elysium Planitia. The Ingenuity helicopter flew to Mars attached to the belly of Perseverance. On April 19, 2021, Ingenuity became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. NASA has three spacecraft in orbit: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and MAVEN. The Hope orbiter from the United Arab Emirates arrived at Mars on February 9, 2021. China’s Tianwen-1 mission arrived on February 10, 2021, and it includes an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. In May 2021, China became the second nation to ever land successfully on Mars when its Zhurong Mars rover touched down. ESA manages the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express missions. India's first Red Planet spacecraft – the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) – has been orbiting Mars since 2014.
As it is the closest planet with the most similar traits to Earth, NASA's ultimate goal for the future is to send humans to explore the Red Planet. To make that happen, they must send more robots. The Perseverance rover carried a small helicopter (Ingenuity, which will help with future missions on Mars and other planets too) and it also has a tool that will try making oxygen as a tree does. It will inhale some of the large amounts of carbon dioxide on Mars and exhale oxygen. This kind of tool could help to prepare for when humans first visit the planet. Astronauts will need oxygen for breathing and fuel. Perseverance will also collect rocks and soil from Mars which will be stored until a future mission can go to Mars to bring the samples to Earth. This will be the first time that samples of another planet could be brought back to Earth for scientists to touch and study. After robots have explored the Red Planet and brought back soil samples, NASA wants to send astronauts there. To prepare to send humans to Mars, NASA is researching new kinds of homes where astronauts can live, how people living in space can grow plants for food, and what it is like living in space from astronauts who previously lived in the International Space Station.
Fun facts!
Mars’ northern side is full of flat plains and the southern side has ridges and craters.
Mars’ surface has many channels, plains, and canyons which could have been caused by water erosion - which could be evidence that open water in liquid form once existed on the surface billions of years ago.
Mars experiences violent dust storms powered by the sun which can last for months and it can completely cover the planet and continually change Mars’ surface.
Mars is home to Olympus Mons, a dormant volcano (an active volcano that is not erupting but supposed to erupt again) which is also the largest and highest mountain in our solar system. It is 16 miles high and 600 km across the base, making it 3x the height of Mount Everest.
Mars has the largest canyon in our solar system, Valles Marineris. It is 4 miles deep and stretches thousands of miles long.
Mars has north and south poles like the Earth with the polar ice caps being covered in a layer of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice).
Sources:
Dunbar, Brian. “What Is Mars?” NASA, NASA, 1 June 2015, www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-mars-58.html.
“How Long Is a Day on Mars?” Royal Museums Greenwich, www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-long-day-on-mars.
“Mars.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 June 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars.
“In Depth.” NASA, NASA, 19 May 2021, solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mars/in-depth/.
“Solar System to Scale: Sun and Planets.” Solar System to Scale: Sun and Planets Dataset | Science On a Sphere, sos.noaa.gov/datasets/solar-system-to-scale-sun-and-planets/#:~:text=The%20second%20planet%20in%20the,3761%20miles%20(6052%20km).&text=Just%20past%20Earth%20is%20Mars,2111%20miles%20(3397%20km).
“20 Fascinating & Fun Science Facts: Planet Mars.” Little House of Science, www.littlehouseofscience.com/20_fascinating__fun_science_facts_planet_mars.
Written by: Sonalen Saing
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