Mars+and+More

HERE ARE SOME OF PICS OF MARS. Is the 4th planet from the sun.Has polar ice caps (made of frozen carbon dioxide). living on mars

It takes 6 whole months to get from Earth to Mars!!

It's year length is 687 earth days.The lowest temperature is -63*c

[|Mars link] [|More Mars info] [|Missions to Mars] Much of the Martian surface is very old and cratered, but there are also much younger rift valleys, ridges, hills and plains. (None of this is visible in any detail with a telescope, even the Hubble Space Telescope; all this information comes from the spacecraft that we've sent to Mars.)
 * : the largest mountain in the Solar System rising 24 km (78,000 ft.) above the surrounding plain. Its base is more than 500 km in diameter and is rimmed by a cliff 6 km (20,000 ft) high.
 * **Tharsis**: a huge bulge on the Martian surface that is about 4000 km across and 10 km high.
 * **Valles Marineris**: a system of canyons 4000 km long and from 2 to 7 km deep (top of page);
 * **Hellas Planitia**: an impact crater in the southern hemisphere over 6 km deep and 2000 km in diameter.
 * //The red planet Mars has inspired wild flights of imagination over the centuries, as well as intense scientific interest. Whether fancied to be the source of hostile invaders of Earth, the home of a dying civilization, or a rough-and-tumble mining colony of the future, Mars provides fertile ground for science fiction writers, based on seeds planted by centuries of scientific observations.

We know that Mars is a small rocky body once thought to be very Earth-like. Like the other "terrestrial" planets -//** **//Mercury//****//,//** **//Venus//****//, and//** **//Earth//** **//- its surface has been changed by volcanism, impacts from other bodies, movements of its crust, and atmospheric effects such as dust storms. It has polar ice caps that grow and recede with the change of seasons; areas of layered soils near the Martian poles suggest that the planet's climate has changed more than once, perhaps caused by a regular change in the planet's orbit. Martian tectonism - the formation and change of a planet's crust - differs from Earth's. Where Earth tectonics involve sliding plates that grind against each other or spread apart in the seafloors, Martian tectonics seem to be vertical, with hot lava pushing upwards through the crust to the surface. Periodically, great dust storms engulf the entire planet. The effects of these storms are dramatic, including giant dunes, wind streaks, and wind-carved features.//**


 * //Unraveling the story of water on Mars is important to unlocking its past climate history, which will help us understand the evolution of all planets, including our own. Water is also believed to be a central ingredient for the initiation of life; the evidence of past or present water on Mars is expected to hold clues about past or present life on Mars, as well as the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. And, before humans can safely go to Mars, we need to know much more about the planet's environment, including the availability of resources such as water.

Mars has some remarkable geological characteristics, including the largest volcanic mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons (27 km high and 600 km across); volcanoes in the northern Tharsis region that are so huge they deform the planet's roundness; and a gigantic equatorial rift valley, the Valles Marineris. This canyon system stretches a distance equivalent to the distance from New York to Los Angeles; Arizona's Grand Canyon could easily fit into one of the side canyons of this great chasm.

Mars also has two small moons,//** **//Phobos//** **//and//** **//Deimos//****//. Although no one knows how they formed, they may be//** **//asteroids//** **//snared by Mars' gravity.//**