SPACE: mars

 MARS:

    Our neighbours in the solar system have fascinated astronomers for hundreds of years. In some ways, Mars looks a lot like Earth, with a day of 25 hours, volcanoes, valleys and ice caps at its poles, which extend or decrease depending on the season. Billions of years ago, Mars had an atmosphere that could sustain a life form. The erosion of valleys, which have become dry and windy, indicates that rivers have flowed here for a long time. Then the atmosphere gradually escaped into space, causing the planet to cool down. 

// Today, Mars is nothing but a frozen desert.

Red Mars:

    On a clear night, we can easily distinguish Mars: 

it looks like a star of a bright red.

 At the time of the Romans, this colour reminded them that of the blood shed in the battles; for this reason, the Romans gave the planet the name of their god of war. 

 In fact, the iron oxide (rust) of the rocks and dust that cover its surface gives Mars this orange red color.

 More recently, astronomers have taken the dark areas for vegetation, because they changed with the seasons; in reality, these areas are only bare rocks of wind-blown dust.

Red sky every day!

    Mars has a very thin atmosphere ( 100 times thinner than Earth ) and contains fine dust particles that give the sky an orange red colour.   Violent storms sometimes raise huge clouds of dust that make its surface invisible.

 During these storms, wind speeds can reach 400 km/h. The atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide, which is a poison for Earthlings (you would have to wear a space suit to be able to breathe).

The satellites of Mars:

    Mars has two tiny satellites, Deimos and Phobos.  

 They may be asteroids that have been trapped by the gravitational force of the planet. Phobos is only 22 km in diameter in the widest place; its gravity is so low, that an astronaut would be 1,000 times lighter there than on Earth: he would have a serious problem to stay on the ground! With a diameter of 8 km, Deimos is the smallest setellite known in the solar system.

Colossal Canyon:

    The dark bar that crosses Mars is a canyon four times deeper and 10 times longer than the Colorado Grand Canyon. High cliffs of 6,000 m border the bottom of the valley. In some places, they have collapsed into huge landslides. Slow movements of the planet’s crust, which cracked its surface millions of years ago, are at the origin of the formation of this canyon called Valles Marineris.

Mount Olympus:

    The largest of the huge volcanoes known by scientists, Mount Olympus located on Mars. It is wider than England! and three times higher than Everest! Mount Olympus has not been in operation for billions of years.