Mars, the red planet, and fourth planet from the sun. What is Mars really like, is it cold or hot, wet or dry? Can humans live on Mars, and if so how? For decades scientists have been studying Mars, they have been using rovers and from there they collected data, samples, and took pictures. These rovers study Mars’ atmosphere, temperatures, weather, if it has water, and a lot more. With all of the data the scientists have gathered we know that Mars’ atmosphere is a lot different than our, yet still has similarities.
Even though Earth and Mars are in the same solar system and orbit the same sun, Mars’ atmosphere and the planet itself is a lot different from Earth. Mars is 142 million miles away from the sun, with a year being 687 days long. It is about half of Earth’s size, and is one tenth of Earth’s mass. Mars’ atmosphere is carbon based, containing 95.3% carbon dioxide, and also it only has .3% water vapor (Source for %). The average temperature on Mars is -81 degrees Fahrenheit which is approximately -62 degrees Celsius (NASA). Mars’ atmosphere is also very thin, so it does not “allow liquid water to exist at the surface for long” (Newsela). Also Mars has a lot less gravity, Earth has 62.5% more gravity than Mars does (NASA). Mars’ environment would not be very hospitable for human life.
Earth also differs a lot from Mars, Earth is 78.1% nitrogen, and 20.9% oxygen, and isn’t carbon based (Source for %). While Mars only is only .3% water vapor, Earth is 1-4%
The planet Mars is a red plant that is found in the Solar System in the Milky Way Galaxy one planets farther from the sun than Earth. The planet Mars has a very thin atmosphere full of primarily carbon dioxide. The surface of Mars is very dusty and rocky because of volcanoes. The geology of Mars is different from Earth in many ways including the amount of volcanoes, mountains, valleys, and internal makeup.
There is a big size difference from Mars to Earth. Mars is only about half the size. This changes a lot on the planet. One factor is changes is there is less gravity. You would be about 38% lighter on Mars. For example, if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth you would
The quote above gives a quick biography on Mars. Mars is a dry, desert like planet that is between Earth and the Asteroid belt and Jupiter. It is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second closest to Earth (first being Venus). Mars is just over one half the size of Earth and has just over one third of Earth 's gravity, and the surface area on Mars is nearly the same as land area on Earth. It has a very weak magnetic field, so a lot of the Suns radiation gets to the surface. Its atmosphere is less than 1% as dense as Earth’s and 95% of it is carbon dioxide. 1 year on Mars is 687 days and has an average surface temperature of -62 degrees Celsius. But Mars does have its similarities, It travels only 4 miles per second slower around the sun, its tilt is 25 degrees, compared to Earth 's 23.5. 1 day on Mars is just 41 minutes longer than Earths, and Mars’ surface temperature range is the closest in the Solar System to Earth’s. http://www.universetoday.com/22603/mars-compared-to-earth/. But
In addition, the crust of Mars contains more volatile elements such as sulfur and chlorine than Earth.
What does the environment look like? Earth or Mars. For example the game Destiny has many environments as in the plant Venus the planet is overgrown with plants and trees. But in Mars the environment is desert like and plan.
20. Although it is much colder on Mars than on Earth, the similar tilt of Earth’s and Mars’ axes means they have similar seasons. Like Earth's, Mars’ north and south polar caps shrink in the summer and grow in the winter. In addition, a day on Mars is 24 hours 37 minutes—nearly the same as Earth’s. No other planet shares such similar characteristics with Earth.e 21. Mars’ seasons are twice as long as those on Earth because it takes Mars 687 days to orbit the sun, twice as long as Earth’s 365-day journey.a 22. With no large moon like Earth’s to stabilize it, Mars periodically tilts much more toward the sun, creating warmer summers on Mars than it otherwise would have.d 23. The Earth’s moon is 240,000 miles away. Earth’s next closest neighbor is Venus, which comes as near as 24 million miles. After the moon and Venus, Mars is our next closest neighbor at 34 million miles away—though when Mars and Earth are at the opposite sides of their orbits around the sun, they are separated by 249 million miles.e 24. Mars is home to Hellas, a vast and featureless plain that covers 1300 miles (the size of the Caribbean Sea). It was created by asteroids crashing into the planet’s surface of Mars
To compare, all three planets have secondary atmospheres that were produced by volcanoes. To contrast, Venus is too close to the Sun, and was too warm for liquid water to form and without liquid water; the CO2 could not settle out of the atmosphere and dissolve into the oceans. This caused Venus to suffer from runaway greenhouse effect and became hot with an extremely dense and vastly insulated atmosphere. Along with this, UV sunlight destroyed the H2O in the atmosphere. On the other hand, Earth had enough distance from the Sun for liquid water to form and precipitate out into the ocean while the CO2 in the atmosphere dissolved into the oceans and was removed from the atmosphere. The trace amounts of H2O and CO2 in the atmosphere create an insulating layer which is enough to keep the Earth at a mild temperature. Out of the three planets, Mars is the farthest from the Sun. It is possible that Mars had liquid water earlier in its history. The CO2 dissolved into water; however, Mars has less mass than Venus or the Earth. Because of Mars’ smaller mass, it has less tectonic activity and Volcanism stopped early in its formation. This did not allow the atmosphere to be renewed from CO2 or H2O
Mars is a planet with 36% of gravity to compared the Earth. If on Earth are 100 pounds on Mars it would weigh 36 pounds. Temperature on Mars may reach -81 degrees F and 39 degrees F. Martian summer are short and hot and winters are long and cold. Mars floor is dry and oxidizing. It also receives to many ultraviolet rays. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide. Has only 0.03% of water that is a thousand times less than the Earth.
Much to common disbelief, Mars and Earth have many things in common. Some of these factors include similarities in size, inclination, structure, composition and the presence of water on their surfaces (Universe Today, 2016). Mars is the next closest planet to Earth. It withholds all necessary elements needed for life to exist. These include water, carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrogen (HowStuffWorks, 2017). There are also unbelievable similarities between Mars’ atmosphere and the Earth’s atmosphere from billions of years ago. Like Mars, when the Earth was first formed it had no oxygen and its atmosphere was comprised of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Earth was not able to produce oxygen until photosynthetic bacteria developed (HowStuffWorks, 2017). Mars’ atmosphere consists of 95.3% carbon dioxide, 2.7% nitrogen, 1.6% argon and 0.2% oxygen.
How similar or different are Mars and Earth’s atmosphere? To start, Earth is mainly composed of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and argon (1%). Secondary compositions include the following: carbon dioxide, neon, helium, methane, krypton, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, xenon, ozone, iodine, carbon monoxide and ammonia (universetoday.com). On the other hand, the following is the composition of Mars atmosphere: Carbon dioxide (95.32%), Nitrogen (2.7%), Argon (1.6%), Oxygen (0.13%) and carbon monoxide (0.08%) (space.com). The atmosphere of Mars is cold and thin, making life exist difficult. To elaborate, liquid water currently can’t exist on any manner of surface on Mars (space.com). To continue, dust storms add to the pain of the thin atmosphere and make life even more difficult to not exist. These dust storms can completely cover the entire planet for whole months at a time (space.com). On the other side of the spectrum, it can even snow on Mars - making the north and south
“I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime” was said by Buzz Aldrin, a NASA astronaut. The former American aeronaut from Montclair, New Jersey believes that since Mars does exist, it is waiting to be reached by humans. When this would happen, he says that the human race would “evolve into a two-planet species.” Present day Mars has a lot of canyons, mountains and volcanoes. Even though the surface is Mars is very old, scientists learned about different younger rift valleys, plains, hills and ridges. According to recent reports, there were lakes and rivers, along with an ocean billions of years ago. The low temperatures on the planet cause there to be polar ice caps and frozen water present.
Its thin atmosphere and most likely a completely waterless surface shows that any life that was to land on the Red Planet would have a hard time trying to survive. At that time, when life was found on Earth, Mars had an ocean, volcanoes and deltas, the difference between Mars and Earth is Mars rapidly lost its hold on habitability. According to scientist Mars lacks the ability to have a protective magnetic field, most of the water left the surface and escaped into space, this was caused by the exposure of the surface to the cosmic rays and ultraviolet light. There were only a few packs of water left on the surface, some remained at the poles whereas others may have remained under the
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. This red planet is 3,389.5 kilometers in size. In pop culture, Mars was a symbol of war and aggression for thousands of years. The kilometer size was very shocking to me. Today, mars is covered in toxic soil and zapped with radiation as it says in the "Pop Culture Mars" article. That seems very dangerous. Mars' diameter is half of Earth's diameter. In the article, "Pop Culture Mars," it states that Mars will soon be a place that humans will soon be able to settle at. Mars has changed over many of years. It all started BC (before Christ). I honestly believe Mars has Earth-like features. Studies have shown that there was water found in Mars. I honestly have no idea about what technology that would be made
Physical characteristics of the Mars is half the diameter of the Earth, less dense than Earth. Mars' rotational period is similar to the Earth rotation. Another interesting facts about Mars is that, it has two Moons which are Deimos and Phobos. Deimos and Phobos are small and irregular shape. Also, Mars have largest volcano and second highest known mountain and largest canyon in the Solar System. Largest volcano and highest mountain is Olympus Mons, it has a height of 25 km and it is three times as tall as Mount Everest. Largest canyon is Valles Marineris is more than 4000 km long , 200 km wide, and up to 7 km deep. It is located along the equator of the Mars. Second interesting facts about the Mars except the similarities to the Earth, is the findings on the
It is also said that the United States government has the technology to travel to Mars and that they have secretly taken humans from planet earth over to Mars since the late 60's. It is said that Mars has is very much like Earth and not as red as commonly portrayed on the surface. Vegetation is said to be scarce on the moon and therefore there is not much oxygen