Looking at the night sky, it is very easy to find Mars. Planets glow with unblinking light. Photographs transmitted by the Viking automatic space station, which visited Mars in 1976, showed that the Martian landscape is very reminiscent of the desert landscape of Arizona.
Mars surface
The soil is covered with rocks. Boulders are scattered among the moving sand dunes. Flat mountains look at the soft pink sky. Even on a summer morning, puddles of water froze, and red rocks were whitewashed with frozen carbon dioxide.
Interesting fact: Mars is red because there is a lot of iron oxide in its soil.
This mineral reflects red rays, therefore it is painted in such colors. In other words, the soil of Mars contains a lot of rust. So if you want to see firsthand what color Mars is, then admire the old rusty cast-iron frying pan. The wind drives particles of Martian soil across the surface of the planet, covering gray volcanic rocks with a thick layer of rust.
Storm on Mars
“Dust Devils” - wildly spinning tornadoes - sweep soil dust into the atmosphere. The fury of Martian storms often exceeds all imaginable limits, enveloping the entire planet with an impenetrable red cloud. Even in calm weather, a certain amount of dust is weighed in the atmosphere of Mars, the sky is painted in a reddish color.
The difference between Mars and Earth
The red planet is very different from Earth. Firstly, it is much smaller, about half.Because of this, the gravitational force on Mars is about one third of Earth's gravity. This means that a 100 - kilogram earthman on Mars will weigh 38 kilograms.
Atmosphere of mars
The Martian atmosphere is very thin. The density of Martian air is one percent of the density of the Earth's atmosphere. Our air consists mainly of nitrogen and oxygen. Martian, on the other hand, contains mainly carbon dioxide (sugary drinks are carbonated with this gas). On Mars, as on Earth, there are seasons. In winter, nighttime temperatures drop to minus 140 degrees Celsius. Summer daytime temperature reaches plus 17 degrees Celsius. In the cold morning hours in winter, a thick dense fog forms in the atmosphere from the frozen particles of carbon dioxide.
There is a Grand Canyon on Earth. On Mars is the Mariner Valley. (The Mariner is an American automatic interplanetary station that made a soft landing on Mars.) The Mariner Valley is a canyon strip with a length of almost 5,000 kilometers. If you dig a canyon across the United States of America, it will stretch from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic.
Satellites of mars
Mars has two small satellites - Phobos and Deimos. They are named after two horses harnessed to the chariot of the Greek god of war, Mars. Names mean “fear” and “horror”. People experience these feelings when war approaches.
Mountains on mars
The depth of the Martian canyons is from five to six kilometers. On Earth there is Mount Everest, on Mars - Mount Olympus. Rushing into the Martian sky, this grandiose peak is more than three times higher than Everest.The huge foot of Mount Olympus exceeds the state of Missouri. No matter how Mars differs from Earth, it is nevertheless the closest planet of the solar system to us by natural conditions.
Why did water disappear from the surface of Mars?
The photographs show dry riverbeds crossing the Martian surface. Scientists think that before them ordinary water rivers flowed along them, as on Earth. Liquid water disappeared from the surface of Mars about 2 billion years ago. Part of the water permeates Martian soil in the form of permafrost, and most in the form of ice covers the polar regions of the red planet (mainly the north pole, the “polar cap” of the south pole consists mainly of frozen carbon dioxide).
Scientists believe that the whole thing is the small gravity of Mars. Because of her, Mars has lost almost all of its original atmosphere. As the atmosphere was diluting, its pressure decreased and, finally, fell so much that it could no longer hold liquid water on the surface of the planet. Most of the water just evaporated into outer space.
Interesting fact: water on Mars permeates the soil, forming permafrost. It also forms the "polar" caps of Mars.
Scientists believe that the ancient denser Martian atmosphere may have contained more oxygen. The proof of this is the presence of iron oxides in the Mars soil, that is, rust. Iron rusts when it reacts with oxygen. Since Mars is colored red, it seems that the composition of its atmosphere used to be different. Perhaps it was air that could be breathed.
