Mars is one of the smallest and driest planets in the solar system, with a year that’s almost twice as long as Earth’s.
But it also has a fair share of water—mostly in the form of ice. Seasonal ice caps and gullies abound, along with evidence that the Red Planet once had an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide.
Size
The planet Mars has been a topic of interest to humans for centuries. It has been the target of dozens of space missions, and is currently one of the most likely destinations for future human missions. However, there are many things to consider before landing on the red planet.
The first thing to remember is that Mars is a lot smaller than Earth, so its gravity is much weaker. This difference makes the surface of Mars more difficult to land on.
Mars has two moons, called Phobos and Deimos, which orbit the planet at a very close distance. Both were probably formed from asteroids captured by Mars’ gravity.
Scientists have also discovered a number of other minor satellites around the planet, some of which appear to be similar to asteroids. This suggests that the planet has been able to capture asteroids over time and re-form them into larger, more stable objects.
Another major difference is that Mars’ surface is much less porous than Earth’s. This makes it impossible for water to accumulate on its surface.
Moreover, Mars has a thicker atmosphere than Earth. It is primarily composed of nitrogen and oxygen, with trace amounts of carbon dioxide and argon.
It also has a dense atmosphere that contains methane and other gases. This mixture is thought to be the cause of the planet’s extreme climate.
The planet’s rocky core is 4,400 miles wide, and its mantle is 1,800 miles thick. It has two kinds of crust: continental and oceanic, which are both about 25 miles (40 km) thick.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere of Mars is significantly different from Earth, primarily due to its thinness. It has an atmospheric volume less than 1% of Earth’s and is dominated by carbon dioxide, although it also contains nitrogen and oxygen gases, water, methane and other trace gases.
The Martian atmosphere is also extremely dusty, with tiny particles measuring 1.5 micrometers in diameter that are a key component of the Martian sky’s tawny color when seen from the surface. This is because the sun’s rays hit the dust in the air, which then heats the particles and causes them to rise into the air and then float away.
It has been hypothesized that microorganisms adapted to the Martian environment could produce enough free oxygen to make it a breathable planet, but such an endeavor would take thousands of years. Ultimately, it is a far more likely scenario that the Mars atmosphere is simply too cold and dry to support life.
However, it is still possible that some form of life might have been able to grow on Mars in the past. Scientists have found evidence of river channels on the planet, suggesting that it once had an ocean a few hundred meters deep.
While water is not currently present on the surface of Mars, it is known to exist in a large concentration within the polar ice caps. It also exists in the permafrost mantle beneath most of the planet’s surface.
Methane is another important gas that has been detected on Mars, but it is chemically unstable in the current oxidizing atmosphere of the Red Planet. It would quickly break down in the ultraviolet radiation and chemical reactions from the Sun.
Temperature
The temperatures of Mars and earth are very different due to several factors. One of them is that the atmosphere on earth is much thicker than that on Mars. This helps the air to trap heat. On Mars, however, the atmosphere is so thin that it is very difficult for the air to capture any heat.
This makes the planet’s temperature colder than on Earth. For example, a summer day on Mars can get up to 70 degrees F (21 degrees C) near the equator, but in winter it can drop to minus 200 F (minus 128 degrees C).
Another factor that makes the Mars planet very cold is its distance from the sun. The average surface temperature on Mars is -46 degC (-51 degF), which is about 40 degrees cooler than that of Earth.
There are many reasons that Mars is so cold, including its incredibly thin atmosphere and its greater distance from the Sun. The planet’s orbital eccentricity also contributes to its extreme temperature variation.
As for the seasons, Mars has four: spring, summer, autumn and winter. These vary in length much more than on Earth, because the planet has a much greater eccentricity.
For instance, a northern winter on Mars lasts for 146 days, while a Martian summer lasts for about six months. The Martian polar ice cap, composed mainly of carbon dioxide ice, shrinks during the summer, only to grow back when winter comes.
Despite the fact that the temperatures on Mars are much colder than those of Earth, there is no evidence that this is due to climate change. In fact, the recent data show that Earth’s temperatures have actually risen over the past 100 years.
Volcanoes
Mars is a hot planet, and it has several types of volcanoes. They include shield volcanoes, flood basalts and lava flows. The most famous of these is Olympus Mons, which rises over a huge area of the planet and is the largest volcano in the solar system.
Volcanoes require a lot of energy to get started, and the heat source has to come from somewhere. Two of the most powerful sources are radiogenic decay (the breaking down of elements in a radioactive atom) and primordial heating from the earliest stages of planet formation, when it was still a mix of rock and metal.
As a smaller planet, Mars would have had fewer of these two sources of heat when it formed, so it may have cooled down too much to drive large eruptions. That’s a big question for scientists, but one they are trying to answer.
Scientists think that the planet’s magma comes from deep below the surface, and that it hasn’t been able to reach the surface for a long time. This is why it erupts less often and doesn’t have as many large volcanoes as Earth does.
It also has a different composition of minerals than the magma on Earth, which makes it more difficult for it to rise to the surface and erupt. Magmas with more silica in them, for example, are thicker and stickier, making them harder to move and allowing gas bubbles to escape more easily.
The difference between the two kinds of magma can also help explain why some volcanoes are lava flows and others are shield volcanoes. These kinds of flows are less dense than ash, so they shoot up in plumes that can reach several miles into the sky. These plumes could be the result of water vapor rising from underground, or they might be a byproduct of erupting rocks and other debris, such as sand, that are carried upward.
Canyons
Planets in our solar system have some amazing landscape features that are hard to imagine on Earth. For the adventurous, planetary science missions send stunning images of these wonders that inspire dreams of mountain climbing and hiking on a world like Mars.
The canyons of Mars are among the most dramatic on the Red Planet. One of the largest is Valles Marineris, a vast system of canyons that extends more than 2,500 miles along the Martian equator and is ten times longer than Earth’s Grand Canyon.
This canyon is part of the Tharsis region of the planet, a geologically active area that includes some of the biggest volcanoes in the entire solar system. Magma bubbled up beneath these volcanoes, cracking open the Martian crust and forming troughs and valleys, ESA said.
Some scientists believe that these features may be evidence of water flowing on the surface of Mars millions of years ago. While there’s no flowing water on the planet today, a meteorite found in Antarctica that fell from Mars a few billion years ago showed signs of microscopic life, and rovers Spirit and Opportunity have confirmed that liquid water once flowed on the Red Planet.
Researchers have been trying to learn more about these complex canyons, which are layered and appear to be deformed by wind erosion and deposition. They also have a high abundance of heavy metals, such as iron, compared to Earth rocks.
The canyons are a good place to start looking for clues to how the Martian landscape formed. Scientists have proposed a number of theories, including erosion during a water-rich past or the withdrawal of subsurface magma to form the troughs and valleys that make up the canyons.