Mars the fourth planet from the Sun is
the second smallest planet in the solar
system larger only than Mercury Mars as
one of the five planets visible to the
unaided eye has been known to
astronomers since ancient times it was
first recorded by ancient Egyptian
astronomers about four thousand years
ago Mars is often called the red planet
because of its reddish color
modern astronomers know that Mars is red
because of large amounts of iron oxide
or rust in the rocks and dust on the
surface but in ancient times people
associated it's red color with warfare
that is why Mars was named for the
ancient Roman god of war
Mars is a small rocky planet the last of
the planets of the inner solar system it
is about 141 million miles or more than
227 million kilometers from the Sun so
it gets less than half as much sunlight
as the earth does
temperatures at the frozen poles may dip
as low as negative 225 degrees
Fahrenheit or negative 143 degrees
Celsius but at the equator it'd make it
as warm as 95 degrees Fahrenheit or 35
degrees Celsius one reason that Mars has
such different temperatures is that
while it has an atmosphere made mostly
of carbon dioxide with tiny amounts of
oxygen it is very thin preventing it
from holding on to much energy from the
Sun Mars has two moons Phobos and Deimos
compared to Mars or even our own moon
they are very very small Phobos the
larger of the two is only 14 miles or 22
kilometres across at its widest point
which means that you could set it down
inside Rhode Island and still have
plenty of room to add day MMus because
they are so small they don't have enough
gravity to pull themselves into spheres
and so Phobos and Deimos are lumpy and
irregular scientists believe that they
may be stray asteroids captured by Mars
larger gravity at some point in the past
something interesting about Mars is that
it is home to the highest known mountain
in the solar system Olympus Mons Olympus
Mons is more than three times higher
than the tallest mountain on earth Mount
Everest it's so tall that it nearly
reaches the top of Mars thin atmosphere
there is no liquid water on Mars but
there are two polar icecaps
made of large amounts of frozen water
and sometimes there are even clouds made
of water vapour much like on earth a day
on Mars is very close to the same length
as a day on earth to Mars rotates in 24
hours and 37 minutes only about 2.7
percent longer than an Earth Day because
Mars is farther from the Sun however
Mars takes much longer to travel once
around the Sun than the earth does
almost 687 days because Mars is so close
to the earth and is so similar in some
ways people have wondered for a very
long time if life could survive there or
if something lived on Mars already back
in 1877 astronomers thought they saw
canals on the surface of Mars in long
straight lines if there were canals they
thought someone must have made them
people wrote books and stories about
aliens for Mars and they called them
Martians
modern astronomers have not found any
signs that anyone or anything has ever
lived on Mars if there was ever life on
Mars it was probably only small simple
kinds of life like bacteria now people
wonder if Mars could be made into a good
place for humans to live more than 50
space missions have been sent to or
close to Mars to gather more information
about this fascinating red planet there
are currently 5 orbiters circling Mars
and two Rovers exploring its surface all
sending data back to earth people want
to try to go to Mars someday and it may
happen in the next few decades until
then there is always more to learn about
this exciting planet I hope you enjoyed
learning more about Mars today goodbye
until next time