1. MARS

2. Where is Mars? 4 th planet in our solar system. Last of the rocky planets. Our solar system is in the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Our sun is 1 of about 100 billion suns in our galaxy. MW is just 1 of roughly 100 billion in the visible universe.

3. How did it get its name? View of Mars through and 8” telescope on 6/11/2003. Mars appears as a ruby-red point of light in the night sky. Romans thought it looked like blood so they named it Mars after their god of War. Before the Romans, the Greeks also named it after their god of war, Ares.

4. What causes the color? Color panorama or Santa Maria Crater taken by the rover, Opportunity. Red color due to much of its surface being covered with iron-rich soil. Soil reacts with the small amounts of oxygen in the Martian atmosphere to form iron oxide (rust). Surface also has rocks of basalt, a dark volcanic rock. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pveqB 9NemKc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pveqB 9NemKc

5. Most similar planet to Earth Roughly the same amount of land surface. Mars is about half the size of Earth but doesn’t have any surface water. Chemistry of atmospheres is similar at least as Earth is compared to other planets in our solar system. Large, sustained polar ice caps. Similar tilt in their rotational axises so they have strong seasons. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/Sibling_Rivalry.html

6. Earth - Mars Comparison Earth Diameter: 12,756 km Mass: 59.7 x 10 25 kg Moons: 1 3,474 km (2149 miles) Distance from sun: 150 million km (93 million miles) Mars 6794 km 6.4 x 10 25 kg 2: named after sons of Ares Phobos (fear) – 21 km Deimos (panic) – 12 km 228 million km (1.52 times as far as Earth) Distance from Earth: 56 – 399 million km (35 - 249 million miles)

8. Seasons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mars_earth_orbit.png

9. Mars’ Surface Temperature: cold. -125 – 25 ° C (-190 – 75 ° F). Earth’s record low temperature = -89.2 ° C (-128.6 ° F) At equator, surface temperature would change 38 ° F between your feet (70 ° F) and the top of your head (32 ° F). Surface Pressure: about 1/100 th that of Earth. Need a spacesuit to hold your internal organs in. Solid rocky crust. Averages about 50km (31 miles) thick compared to Earth’s, 40km (25 miles) Ancient landscapes dominated by hundred of thousands of impact craters (mostly seen in southern hemisphere). http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20080625.html

10. Largest in the Solar System Crater: Borealis Basin covers about 40% of surface. (5,300 miles across, bigger than Pluto!) Largest crater on Earth: Vredefort in South Africa, 300km, 186 miles. Chicxulub (Mexican Yucatan) = 170km (thought to have killed dinosaurs) Canyon: Valles Marineris names after the space probe that first took pictures of it, US Mariner 9. 4,000km (2,500 miles) in length (distance across US) and 7km deep. Grand Canyon: 400km long by 1.8km deep. Volcano: Olympus Mons rises 27 km (16.7 miles) and about the size of the state of Arizona!

13. http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/256081main_mro-poles-browse.jpg

15. Polar Caps -Made of frozen water and carbon dioxide. -Almost entirely frozen water that is up to 3km (1.8 miles) thick. -Northern cap is about 1,200km (745 miles) across in winter. -Seasonal ice caps (entirely dry ice) is about 1m thick accumulate during the winter and sublimate during the summer. -Colder southern ice cap is 1/3 of this but has much deeper ice. -Permanent dry ice cover of 8m deep. -Enough water in the southern ice cap alone to cover the whole planet to a depth of 11m (36 feet).

16. Water on Mars http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMO78Q4KKF_index_0.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YWu8Bd7Spg

17. How do you get to Mars? http://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=-nAhag_iFx0 http://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=-nAhag_iFx0 http://www.universetoday.com /14841/how-long-does-it-take- to-get-to-mars/ http://www.universetoday.com /14841/how-long-does-it-take- to-get-to-mars/