Mars

Once scientists decided that Venus wasn’t a good planet to go explore, Mars became the favorite planet. Called the red planet because of the rusted iron in crust, it is ~1/2 the size of Earth (but ~1/3 (38%) the gravity – I’ll explain this later). It is 1 of only 2 planets (Earth is the other) with polar ice caps.  It has 2 moons called Phobos & Deimos. There are a lot of amazing things about Mars, but one of them is that it has a canyon that is almost TEN times as big as our Grand Canyon.

How big is Mars compared to Earth?

Mars is smaller than Earth! Its radius is 2,106 miles (3,390 km) — about half the size of Earth. If Earth was a big beach ball, Mars would be a smaller soccer ball!

How long does it take for Mars to orbit the Sun?

Mars takes a little longer to go around the Sun than Earth, making a full orbit 687 Earth days — one whole Mars year!

What is the surface of Mars like?

Mars is a cold, dusty desert world with a thin atmosphere, and its rocks and dust make it look red. Its surface has huge canyons, giant volcanoes, dry lake beds, and ice caps at the poles.

A close-up view of an astronaut's bootprint in the lunar soil, photographed with a 70mm lunar surface camera during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA) on the moon. While astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot, descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia" in lunar orbit. Image Credit: NASA
Apollo Astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, works at the Lunar Roving Vehicle during the first Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) at the Hadley-Apennine landing site. The shadow of the Lunar Module "Falcon" is in the foreground. This view is looking northeast, with Mount Hadley in the background. This photograph was taken by astronaut David R. Scott, commander. Image Credit: NASA
NASA's Galileo spacecraft took this image of Earth's Moon on Dec. 7, 1992, on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97. The distinct bright ray crater at the bottom of the image is the Tycho impact basin. Image Credit: NASA

WOW! This planet is going to be really cool when we get there, but we haven’t gone there yet.

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