All About The Planet Mars

by Patrick Omari

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and is named after the Roman God of war. The planet is a distinctive shade of red and is the last of the rocky terrestrial planets. Mars is substantially smaller than Earth and Venus but larger than Mercury. The planet has been the subject of intense speculation about the existence of extra terrestrial life with evidence of water on the surface at the polar ice caps. While recent robotic explorations have shown that the presence of life is unlikely it has still not been conclusively ruled out.

Mars has a thin atmosphere, much thinner than Earth’s. It is kept this way by the solar winds stripping atoms from the top layer, Mars’s atmosphere lacks a magnetosphere to protect it. The surface pressure of the Martian atmosphere is less than one percent of that found on Earth. Despite the sparseness of the atmosphere however, it extends 5km higher than Earth’s due to lower gravity. Mars has a relatively low mass and the surface gravity is just 38 percent of Earth’s.

Continue Reading All About The Planet Mars