1. The name of the planet was derived from the name of the god of war among the Romans due to the fact that the color of Mars is very similar to blood.
2. Ancient Mars was full of water. After years of studying Mars’ atmosphere and surface, NASA/GSFC discovered that our neighboring Mars planet had a lot of water in the past. NASA speculates that in the past, the red planet had enough water to completely fill the planet’s surface in a huge ocean. There are two forms of water in the Martian atmosphere: H20 and HDO, and their numbers are also measured. To conclude, the researchers compared the proportions of H20 and HDO that exist today with the proportions of water in ancient Martian meteorites. Studies show that Mars lost 87% of its water into space.
3. Mars has mountains, and Mount Olympus is currently the highest mountain in the solar system known to mankind.
4. About 20% of Mars’ atmosphere freezes during winter.
5. Ten pieces of Mars threw a meteorite to Earth. As you know, more than 130 Martian meteorites have been discovered on Earth. Over time, tiny fragments of Mars’ surface were thrown into space among other solar fragments before they crashed to the Earth’s surface. These small meteors on the Red Planet allowed Mars exploration to study this property further, even before the Mars rover was destroyed.
6. Mars is 2 times smaller than Earth but is almost 10 times lighter than our planet
7. The closest distance from Earth to this planet is 5576 million km and the farthest is 401 million km. We know a lot about Mars and have been observing it for a long time. Many people believe that civilization once existed on the surface, but this fact has not been proven by scientists.
8. Mars has two moons. The name of the first “phobos” translated from Greek as “fear”, the second name – “deimos” in Greek “horror”, they were taken from Homer’s Iliad. They rotate not only around Mars, but also around an axis.
9. More than 100,000 people have applied for a one-way flight. There was once a Mars One project, which flew to Mars and then wanted to televise everything. Many scientists and experts were not convinced that this project would be a success.
10. Mars can have huge dust storms which last for months and can cover the entire planet.
