Mars+Attacks

Welcome to Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. It is often refered to as the Red Planet. This is because of the large amounts of iron oxide in Mars soil, giving it a bright red glow in the night sky. The name Mars comes from the Roman god of war and agriculture. Mars is known to be about 4.6 billion years old. Two moons orbit around Mars, their names, Phobos and Deimos. They were discovered in 1877. Phobos can make it around Mars almost four times faster than Deimos. Mars is located just inside the asteroid belt. One hundred, and fourty two million miles, or two hundred, and twenty nine million kilometers separate Mars and the sun. The Red Planet is also home to the biggest physical feature in our solar system, Olympus Mons. This is the tallest mountian in the solar system reaching heights of twenty seven kilometers, this is about three times the size of Mount Everest. Mars day is very close to Earth's, a day in Mars is twenty four hours and 37 minutes. However Mars orbit around the sun is obviously different than Earth's. It takes Mars almost 687 days th complete one year, 686.98 to be exact. Mars symbol is the symbol for a male on Earth. Mariner 4 traveled to Mars from 1964-1967, it discovered no intelligent life form. Massive volcanoes, and giant water ways were also discovered during this trip. Viking 2 was the next to land and explore the planet in 1975. Viking 2 gathered better pictures of the huge volcanoes. It discovered even more evidence of water that could possibly have been on Mars. Deep Canyons made scientists conclude that water was once running on Mars. Mars has a mass of 6.4219 kg. Its atmosphere is mostly made up of nitrogen, oxygen and argon and its temperature is normally 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Mars is 4,222 miles long and its density is 3.933.

Mars is the closest planet to sustaining life (excluding Earth). Mars was thought at one time to be the home of some lifeform, but many tests and probes showed no trace of life, still some people believe. Some scientists say once their was life on mars, because of large valleys and traces of water. Other say by introducing life to mars, some day it could sustain life. But for now we are stuck on Earth.

Here are some fun and interesting facts about mars. If you weighed 110 pounds, on Mars you would weigh 41.1 pounds, 170 on Earth is 64 pounds on Mars! If we shrank the entire solar system and the sun had a diameter of 615 millimeters, Mars would only be 2.9 millimeters wide. If you were born on September twenty second, 1995, you would be 7 and a half years old, and still in the second grade. Your next birthday would come rather soon on Friday October eight, 2010.





http://www.nasa.gov http://www.kidsastronomy.com http://www.exploration.edu/ronh/age/index.html http://www.exploration.edu/ronh/weight/index.html http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/mars.html

Created By: Rachel Stafford, Gabe Gunion, and Karsten Cooper.