The Planet Mars

Mars

Click for Live Display showing the current positions of the moons of Mars.

Mars is the fourth closest planet to the Sun and orbits in an fairly eccentric orbit at around 230 (+-20) million km.

Similarities to Earth

Mars takes about 686 Earth days to orbit the Sun. It has a tilt (25.1 degrees) and rotational period (24 hour 37 minutes) which are both similar to the Earth with a day (sunrise to sunrise) lasting 24 hours, 39 mins. Because of the tilt it also has seasons in the same way as the Earth does.

Second Smallest Planet

Mars is about half the size of the Earth with a diameter of 6,792km. However its mass is only a tenth of Earth’s with gravity on the surface being around 37% that of Earth’s.

Thin Atmosphere

Because Mars no longer has a magnetic field to protect it, Mars has lost its original atmosphere due to the effects of the solar wind interacting with the atmosphere causing atoms to be lost into space. Spacecraft have detected streams of atoms trailing off into space behind Mars. As a result the atmospheric pressure on Mars is 1% that on Earth. It is comprised of mostly (95%) carbon dioxide.

Coldest of the Inner Planets

Mars is very cold. Not only is it about 1.5 times further from the Sun than Earth, it also has a thin atmosphere which cannot store much heat. Because of this the temperature ranges from about -143 degrees C in winter up to a maximum of 35 degrees C in summer.

Dust Storms

Mars is very dusty and prone to huge dust storms which can envelop the entire planet. These are more likely to occur when the planet is closest to the Sun.

Interactive Map

A Map of Mars - Click to go to NASA's interactive map

Signs of Liquid Water

Evidence has been increasing that liquid water has sculpted the landscape of Mars in the past and is probably flowing, or rather seeping through the rocks during periods within salts called perchlorate salts. The video below talks about the details of this discovery.

Skip the first ten minutes to avoid the NASA hard sell, and hang in there with the poor quality sound on Luju's report from France.

Moons : Phobos and Deimos

Mars is lucky enough to have 2 small moons - both discovered in August 1877 by Asaph Hall. Phobos is tiny - only about 22km across- orbiting very close to Mars (9300km from its centre or 6000km above its surface) every 7 hours. It can be described as a non symmetrical, heavily cratered, dirty rock. Deimos however, is even smaller. It is only 12km across and orbits at 23,000 km every 30 hours. The origins of the moons are disputed but it is likely they are captured asteroids. However their near perfect circular orbits which align with the planets equator could point toward them originating on or with Mars. For more information on the moons, click here.

Mars and Man

Mars is named after the Roman god of war and has been known since before Babylonian times where it was associated with Nergul, a god of war, fire and destruction - possibly inspired by its red colour.

Possibly because Mars has a more benign environment than that of any of the other inner planets (other than Earth of course) it has received quite a few robotic explorers.

The first successful fly-by of Mars was performed by Mariner 4 in 1965. Mariner 9 in 1971 became the first probe to orbit another planet when it entered Mars orbit. Shortly after 2 Soviet probes Mars2 and Mars3 became the first to successfully land on another planet - even though they ceased functioning very shortly after. 1976 saw the US Viking mission with two orbiters and two landers. The landers successfully relayed images of the Mars surface and other measurements and continued working for up to 6 years.

In 1988 the soviets sent 2 probes (phobos 1 and 2) to photograph and land on the moons. One lost communications in transit and the other successfully photographed the phobos but failed before deploying its landers. Mars Global Surveyor entered the Mars orbit in 1997 and spent 4 years mapping Mars in detail. Also in 1997 Mars Pathfinder landed on the surface with its robotic vehicle Sojourner which was able to wander up to 0.5 km from the lander and took many photographs and measurements from the rocks and soil. Another lander, Phoenix, landed in the polar regions of Mars and confirmed the presence of water on Mars.

Since the year 2000, many additional probes have reached Mars and now provide detailed monitoring of the planets atmosphere and geography. The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity landed in 2004 for their 90 day mission. They both exceeded their mission objectives with Spirit eventually failing in March 2010 and Opportunity being declared dead in February 2019 after contact was lost in July 2018 when a huge planet wide dust storm blocked it's energy source - the Sun. End of Opportunity Mission Article.

Opportunity has exceeded a marathon distance of over 45 kilometres travelled. NASA Mars Exploration Rover Site.

Mars is currently host to many functioning spacecraft:

Orbiters - the Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, Mars Orbiter Mission, Tianwen-1 Orbiter, Hope Mars Mission Orbiter.
On the surface - the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, InSight, Perseverance and Ingenuity, Tianwen-1 Rover.

NASA's InSight arrived successfully on the surface on the 26th November 2018. It's mission is to determine the structure of the planet through seismology and temperature measurements. So far it has detected over 1300 earthquakes (the first detection on another planet), It has gained more information on the depth and density of the crust, mantle and core of the planet. Rocks that were magnetised when the planet had a stronger mangetic field have retained a stronger magnetism than was expected and scientists are intrigued by a magnetic pulse that occurs every midnight.

NASA's Mars 2020 Mission - a rover called "Perseverance", and a solar powered drone, called "Ingenuity" to help with navigation. (Mars Helicopter Links: Mars Helicopter Article, NASA Video, JPL Video). The rover successfully landed on 18 February 2021 and has travelled over 5 km taking samples of rocks which will, in the future, be returned to earth. The helicopter has succesfully flown over 20 times and has been used to scout ahead of the rover.

2020 Chinese Mars Mission - Tianwen-1 (TW-1) consists of an orbiter, deployable camera, lander and rover. The spacecraft, with a total mass of nearly five tons, is one of the heaviest probes launched to Mars and carries 13 scientific instruments. The mission was successfully launched on 23 July 2020. After 7 months of transit, it entered orbit around Mars on 10 February 2021. The rover and lander successfully reached the surface 14 May 2021 and has travelled over 1km in it's explorations. It has discovered hydrated minerals which is not only interesting from a scientific stand point, but also useful for future manned exploration.

Hope Mars Mission or 'Al-Amal' - A United Arab Emirates orbiter which arrived on 9 February 2021. The United Arab Emirates became the first Arab country and the fifth country to reach Mars and the second country to successfully enter Mars’ orbit on its first try. The spacecraft is studying the atmosphere of Mars.

Future missions include:

India's Mars Orbiter Mission 2 - from the Indian Space Research Organisation. An orbiter is planned to be launched in 2024.

ExoMars 2020 - the second part of ESA's ExoMars mission to search for life. It comprised of a lander ("Kazachok") and a rover ("Rosalind Franklin") to land which was intended to land in 2021. Problems with the lander have meant this mission is delayed until 2022 (and changing the name from ExoMars 2020 to ExoMars 2022). Subsequently, due to Russia's war on Ukraine, the mission has been postponed to 2028 when a non-Russian launch vehicle will be used.

Here are a list of missions 2023 to 2028 from Wiki (as of Aug 2022):

Mission	Organization	Launch	Type
Psyche	NASA  United States	NET July 2023	Flyby en route to 16 Psyche
Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) Phobos Sample Return Mission	JAXA  Japan	September 2024[45][46]	Orbiter / lander
Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorer mission (ESCAPADE) Photon Blue and Gold	NASA  United States	October 2024[47]	2 Orbiters
Mars Orbiter Mission 2 (Mangalyaan 2)	ISRO  India	2024[48][49]	Orbiter[50][51]
Tianwen-2 / ZhengHe Asteroid Sample Return Mission[52]	CNSA  China	2025[53][54]	2027 flyby en route to 311P/PANSTARRS
Tianwen-3 Mars sample-return mission	CNSA  China	2028[55]	Two spacecrafts: one consists of orbiter and return module, the other lander, ascent module and a mobile sampling robot. Expected sample return: July 2031[56]
TEREX-1[57]	NICT, ISSL  Japan	Mid 2020s	Orbiter
ExoMars Kazachok lander /"Rosalind Franklin" rover	SRI RAS  Russia	Postponed indefinitely due to 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine	Lander
	ESA		Rover

Observations by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.

Perseverence

I was impressed with curiosity's 4 frame a second video.... but this blows it out of the water! Really exciting when the audio from mission control (that was actually recorded several minutes later - because of the time delay between Mars and Earth) is dubbed onto the video as if live.

Curiosity

Above is one of those most rarest of media (EDIT: until Perseverance’s landing)- live video (even only at four frames a second) from another planet. This video follows the landing of Curiosity - from the ejection of it's heat shield, falling (on parachute) and then being lowered to the surface from the sky crane (a hovering rocket powered structure that kicks up a lot of dust in the video).

Above is a remarkable animation (made before Curiosity even left earth) showing Curiosity's exciting arrival and then the rover going about it's business. Strangely, it brings home the loneliness of the life of a Mars Rover.

Viking Image

First colour image from the surface of Mars. Viking Mission, July 21, 1976. By NASA/JPL - (image link), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22220106