Overview

Namesake: Roman god of war because of its red color.

Type: terrestrial

Distance from the Sun: 1.52 AU (142 million miles); 4th planet from the sun

Year: 687 earth days

Day: 24.617 earth hours

Effective temperature: -81° F

Diameter: 4,212.2 miles

Size: ½ the size of Earth

Atmosphere: mostly carbon dioxide

Rings: 0

Moons: 2 (Phobos & Deimos)

Other Information:

- Its soil is red because it contains rust (iron oxide)

- Mars has 4 seasons but they are twice as long as Earth’s seasons.

- There is frozen water just under its surface.

- Because Phobos is slowly moving towards Mars, it will eventually either crash into the planet or break up into millions of pieces.

- Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system. It is a shield volcano with a diameter of 376 miles (about the size of the state of Arizona) and 16 miles high. That’s about 100 times larger than Earth’s largest volcano, Mauna Loa, or about 2 ½ times taller than Mount Everest.

- Mariner Valley runs along its equator and is 2500 miles long and gets up to 4 miles deep.

Find out how much you would weigh if you moved here:

Try this formula to see how much you would weigh:

(Your weight x 0.38)