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MARS
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun in the solar system. In
ancient times, it was referred to as “Ares”, the god of war by the
Greeks. 3600 years ago it was known to the Babylonians as “the
star that wandered”. Mars was also found and identified first by
Babylonian astronomers. Due to it’s bloody colour, Romans named
it after their god of war.
The distance from the sun to mars is just about 1.52x as far
as earth. It takes about 26 earth months for this red planet to orbit
the sun. One martian day equals to 24.7 hours (quite close to an
earth day). Mars’ atmosphere comprises of mostly carbon dioxide.
The temperatures are outrages too, they rise hardly above
freezing.
Mars’ atmosphere is quite similar to Venus’, but much, much
thinner. Martian atmosphere consists of exactly 96% carbon
dioxide, 1.9% argon, 1.9% nitrogen, and traces of free oxygen,
methane, carbon monoxide, and water. Humans couldn’t breath in
these conditions. The detection of traces of methane sparked
interest in this atmosphere. It could mean life on Mars, but the
methane could also be produced by a geochemical process,
volcanic or hydrothermal activity. The atmosphere is incredibly
dusty, giving the sky a pink-brown-orangish hue. Mars’ surface
pressure is only 1/150th of earth’s.
Mars is extremely cold, mostly due to it’s distance from the
sun. The average temperature is abut -60 degrees C, although the
temperature can vary greatly throughout the day. Even though the
atmosphere is 100x less dense than earth’s, it is still thick enough
to support weather, clouds, and wind. It’s atmosphere’s density
varies from season to season, as winter forces carbon dioxide to
freeze out of the air. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found
the first definitive traces of carbon-dioxide snow clouds, making
Mars the only planet in the solar system to host the weather.
Mars has the largest dust storms in the solar system. The
storms are capable of blanketing the entire planet for months. One
theory as to why the storms grow so large starts with airborne dust
particles absorbing sunlight, warming the Martian atmosphere.
Mars has two moons, called Phobos and Deimos. They are
thought to be captured asteroids. Both satellites were discovered
in 1877 by Asaph Hall. The moons were named after their
characters, Phobos (panic/fear) and Deimos (terror/dread), who (in
Greek mythology) accompanied their father Ares into battle. It is
possible that mars may have moons smaller than 50-100m and a
dust ring between Phobos and Deimos may be presenr but none
has been found yet.
Water on mars exists exclusively as ice, with a small fraction
of it as vapour in the atmosphere. The only place water ice is
visible on the surface of the planet is at the north polar ice cap.
Much water ice is also present beneath the permanent carbon
dioxide ice cap at the Martian south ice cap. Today it is known that
mars had a very abundant amount of water one time very early in
history.