Mars: What We Know About the Red Planet

Mars: What We Know About the Red Planet

v Introduction

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. Befitting the Red Planet's bloody color, the Romans named it once their god of war. In truth, the Romans traced the traditional Greeks, UN agency conjointly named the earth once their god of war, Ares. Other civilizations conjointly generally gave the earth names supported its color — as an example, the Egyptians named it "Her Desher," that means "the red one," while ancient Chinese astronomers dubbed it "the fire star."

v Physical characteristics

The bright rust color Mars is understood for is because of iron-rich minerals in its regolith — the loose dirt and rock covering its surface. The soil of Earth could be a reasonably regolith, too, albeit one loaded with organic content. According to National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the iron minerals oxidize, or rust, inflicting the soil to appear red.

The cold, skinny atmosphere suggests that liquid water seemingly cannot exist on the Martian surface for any length of your time. Features called recurring slope lineae may have spurts of briny water flowing on the surface, but this evidence is disputed; some scientists argue the hydrogen spotted from orbit in this region may instead indicate briny salts. This means that though this desert planet is simply 0.5 the diameter of Earth, it's constant quantity of solid ground.

v Polar caps

Vast deposits of what seem to be finely stratified stacks of water ice and dirt extend from the poles to latitudes of concerning eighty degrees in each hemisphere. These were in all probability deposited by the atmosphere over long spans of your time. On top of much of these layered deposits in both hemispheres are caps of water ice that remain frozen year-round.

Additional seasonal caps of frost appear in the wintertime. These are made of solid carbon dioxide, also known as "dry ice," which has condensed from carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere. In the deepest a part of the winter, this frost will extend from the poles to latitudes as low as forty-five degrees, or halfway to the equator. The solid layer seems to possess a soft texture, like freshly fallen snow, in keeping with a report within the Journal of geology Research-Planets.

v Climate

Mars is way colder than Earth, in giant half because of its bigger distance from the sun. The average temperature is concerning minus eighty degrees physicist (minus sixty degrees Celsius), though it will vary from minus 195 F (minus a hundred twenty-five C) close to the poles throughout the winter to as much as 70 F (20 C) at midday near the equator.

v Orbital characteristics

The axis of Mars, like Earth's, is tilted with relation to the sun. This means that like Earth, the quantity of daylight falling on sure components of the Mars will vary wide throughout the year, giving Mars seasons.

Composition & structure

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Atmospheric composition (by volume)

According to NASA, the atmosphere of Mars is 95.32 percent carbon dioxide, 2.7 percent nitrogen, 1.6 percent argon, 0.13 percent oxygen, 0.08 percent carbon monoxide, with minor amounts of water, nitrogen oxide, neon, hydrogen-deuterium-oxygen, krypton and xenon.

v Magnetic field

Mars currently has no global magnetic field, but there are regions of its crust that can be at least 10 times more strongly magnetized than anything measured on Earth, which suggests those regions are remnants of an ancient global magnetic field.

v Chemical composition

Mars seemingly contains a solid core composed of iron, nickel and sulfur. The mantle of Mars is maybe the same as Earth's in this it's composed principally of igneous rock, that is created up primarily of atomic number 14, oxygen, iron and Mg. The crust is maybe for the most part product of the igneous rock volcanic rock, that is additionally common within the crusts of the world and also the moon, although some crustal rocks, especially in the northern hemisphere, may be a form of andesite, a volcanic rock that contains more silica than basalt does.

v Internal structure

Scientists think that on average, the Martian core is between 1,800 and 2,400 miles in diameter (3,000 and 4,000 km), its mantle is about 900 to 1,200 miles (5,400 to 7,200 km) wide and its crust is concerning thirty miles (50 km) thick.

v The moons of Mars

The two moons of Mars, satellite and Deimos, were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall over the course of a week in 1877. Hall had virtually given up his explore for a moon of Mars, but his wife, Angelina, urged him on. He discovered Deimos succeeding night, and Phobos six days after that. He named the moons once the sons of the Greek immortal Ares — satellite suggests that "fear," while Deimos means "rout."

Both satellite and Deimos ar apparently product of carbon-rich rock mixed with ice and square measure lined in dirt and loose rocks. They are little next to Earth's moon, and are irregularly shaped, since they lack enough gravity to pull themselves into a more circular form. The widest satellite gets is concerning seventeen miles (27 km), and the widest Deimos gets is roughly 9 miles (15 km).

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Both moons square measure pockmarked with craters from meteor impacts. The surface of satellite conjointly possesses associate degree involved pattern of grooves, which may be cracks that formed after the impact created the moon's largest crater — a hole about 6 miles (10 km) wide, or nearly half the width of Phobos. They continually show constant face to Mars, even as our moon will to Earth.