MARS

Where is Mars?

• 4th planet in our solar system.• Last of the rocky planets.• Our solar system is in the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.• Our sun is 1 of about 100 billion suns in our galaxy.• MW is just 1 of roughly 100 billion in the visible universe.

How did it get its name?

• View of Mars through and 8” telescope on 6/11/2003.

• Mars appears as a ruby-red point of light in the night sky.

• Romans thought it looked like blood so they named it Mars after their god of War.

• Before the Romans, the Greeks also named it after their god of war, Ares.

What causes the color?

• Color panorama or Santa Maria Crater taken by the rover, Opportunity.

• Red color due to much of its surface being covered with iron-rich soil.

• Soil reacts with the small amounts of oxygen in the Martian atmosphere to form iron oxide (rust).

• Surface also has rocks of basalt, a dark volcanic rock.

• http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=14660&media_id=121735521

Most similar planet to Earth

• Roughly the same amount of land surface.• Mars is about half the size of

Earth but doesn’t have any surface water.

• Chemistry of atmospheres is similar at least as Earth is compared to other planets in our solar system.

• Large, sustained polar ice caps.• Similar tilt in their rotational

axises so they have strong seasons. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/Sibling_Rivalry.html

Earth - Mars Comparison

Earth• Diameter: 12,756 km• Mass: 59.7 x 1025 kg• Moons: 1

• 3,474 km (2149 miles)

• Distance from sun:• 150 million km (93 million miles)

Mars• 6794 km• 6.4 x 1025 kg• 2: named after sons of Ares• Phobos (fear) – 21 km• Deimos (panic) – 12 km

• 228 million km (1.52 times as far as Earth)

• Distance from Earth:• 56 – 399 million km (35 - 249 million miles)

Mars’ Surface

• Temperature: cold.• -125 – 25 °C (-190 – 75 °F).• Earth’s record low temperature = -89.2 °C (-128.6 °F)

• At equator, surface temperature would change 38°F between your feet (70°F) and the top of your head (32°F).

• Surface Pressure: about 1/100th that of Earth.• Need a spacesuit to hold your internal organs in.

• Solid rocky crust.• Averages about 50km (31 miles) thick compared to Earth’s, 40km

(25 miles)• Ancient landscapes dominated by hundred of thousands of

impact craters (mostly seen in southern hemisphere).http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20080625.html

Largest in the Solar System

• Crater: Borealis Basin covers about 40% of surface.• (5,300 miles across, bigger than Pluto!)• Largest crater on Earth: Vredefort in South Africa, 300km, 186

miles.• Chicxulub (Mexican Yucatan) = 170km (thought to have killed

dinosaurs) • Canyon: Valles Marineris names after the space probe that

first took pictures of it, US Mariner 9.• 4,000km (2,500 miles) in length (distance across US) and 7km

deep.• Grand Canyon: 400km long by 1.8km deep.

• Volcano: Olympus Mons rises 27 km (16.7 miles) and about the size of the state of Arizona!

Polar Caps

- Made of frozen water and carbon dioxide.- Almost entirely frozen water that is up to 3km (1.8 miles) thick.- Northern cap is about 1,200km (745 miles) across in winter.

- Seasonal ice caps (entirely dry ice) is about 1m thick accumulate during the winter and sublimate during the summer.

- Colder southern ice cap is 1/3 of this but has much deeper ice.- Permanent dry ice cover of 8m deep.- Enough water in the southern ice cap alone to cover the whole planet to a depth of 11m (36 feet).

Water on Mars Video

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMO78Q4KKF_index_0.html

How do you get to Mars?

• http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=14660&media_id=121735521

• http://www.universetoday.com/14841/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars/