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Mars
By: Brandy Lathrop
Table Of Contents
 The Atmosphere
 Planet Size
 The Name
 Missions
 Similarities
 Facts
 Facts Cont.
 Facts Cont.
 Sources
The Atmosphere
 The atmosphere of Mars is less
than 1% of Earth's, so it does
not protect the planet from the
Sun's radiation nor does it do
much to retain heat at the
surface. It consists of 95%
carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen,
1.6% argon, and the remainder
is trace amounts of oxygen,
water vapor, and other gases.
Planet Size
 Mars is the fourth planet from the
Sun and the second-smallest planet
in the Solar System, after Mercury.
 Radius: 2,106 mi
 Mass: 6.39 × 10^23 kg (0.107 M⊕)
 Length of day: 1d 0h 40m
 Density: 3.93 g/cm³
 Gravity: 3.711 m/s²
 Orbital period: 687 days
The Name
 The planet is named after Mars,
the Roman god of war. It was
known to the ancient Greeks as
Ares, their god of war. This is
thought to be because of the
blood-red color of the planet
which was also used by other
ancient cultures. Chinese
astronomers call Mars the “fire
star” while ancient Egyptian
priests called it “Her Desher”
meaning “the red one”.
Missions
 Only 16 of the 39 Mars missions have
been successful. Beginning with the
USSR’s Marsnik 1 which was
launched in 1960, 39 orbiters, landers
and rovers have been to Mars but
only 16 of those missions were a
success. In 2016, Europe’s
Exobiology on Mars program will
search the planet for signs of Martian
life as well as study the surface and
terrain of the planet and map
potential environmental hazards to
future manned missions to Mars.
Similarities
 The landmass of Mars and Earth
is very similar.Despite Mars
being just 15% the volume and
10% the mass of Earth, it actually
has a similar landmass because
water covers about 70% of
Earth’s surface. The surface
gravity of Mars is about 37% the
gravity found on Earth. This
means that on Mars you could in
theory jump 3x higher than you
could on Earth.
Interesting Facts
 The tallest mountain known in the
solar system is on Mars. Olympus
Mons is a 21 km high and 600 km
diameter shield volcano that was
formed billions of years ago.
Scientists have found a lot of recent
evidence of volcanic lava which
suggests Olympus Mons may still be
active. It is the second highest
mountain in the entire solar system,
topped only by the Rheasilvia central
peak on the asteroid Vesta, which is
22 km high.
Interesting Facts Cont.
 Mars has seasons like
Earth, but they last twice as
long. This is because Mars
is tilted on its axis by about
25.19 degrees, which is
similar to the axial tilt of
the Earth (22.5 degrees).
Interesting Facts Cont.
 Mars does not have a
magnetic field – although
there are some scientists
that believe it did have a
magnetic field somewhere
around 4 billion years ago.
 It takes Mars 687 Earth
days to orbit the Sun with
its orbit radius of
227,840,000 km.
Sources
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars
 http://www.universetoday.com/22673/size-of-mars/
 https://theplanets.org/mars/
 http://burningtreemagazine.com/2016/06/27/water-on-mars-getting-answersfrom-a-florida-state-professor/