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MarsIn Roman mythology, the god of war (Mars Gradivus), depicted as a fearless warrior. The month of March is named after him. He was identified with the Greek Ares, but achieved greater status. Together with Jupiter and Quirinius, a Sabine war god, he was one of the three great guardians of Rome. His name was given to a military exercise ground, the Campus Martius, where an annual horse racing festival was held on 14 Mar in his honour. Mars was also a god of agriculture, and protector of cattle. The wolf and the woodpecker were sacred to him. MarsFourth planet from the Sun. It is much smaller than Venus or Earth, with a mass 0.11 that of Earth. Mars is slightly pear-shaped, with a low, level northern hemisphere, which is comparatively uncratered and geologically ‘young’, and a heavily cratered ‘ancient’ southern hemisphere. Mean distance from the Sun 227.9 million km/141.6 million mi Equatorial diameter 6,780 km/4,210 mi Rotation period 24 hours 37 minutes Year 687 Earth days Atmosphere 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.5% argon, and 0.15% oxygen. Red atmospheric dust from the surface whipped up by winds of up to 450 kph/280 mph accounts for the light pink sky. The surface pressure is less than 1% of the Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level Surface the landscape is a dusty, red, eroded lava plain. Mars has white polar caps (water ice and frozen carbon dioxide) that advance and retreat with the seasons Satellites two small satellites: Phobos and Deimos | There are four enormous volcanoes near the equator, of which the largest is Olympus Mons 24 km/15 mi high, with a base 600 km/375 mi across, and a crater 65 km/40 mi wide. To the east of the four volcanoes lies a high plateau cut by a system of valleys, Valles Marineris, some 4,000 km/2,500 mi long, up to 200 km/120 mi wide and 6 km/4 mi deep; these features are apparently caused by faulting and wind erosion. Recorded temperatures vary from −100°C/−148°F to 0°C/32°F. |
| Mars may approach Earth to within 54.7 million km/34 million mi. The first human-made object to orbit another planet was Mariner 9, launched in 1971 (see Mariner). The two Viking probes, which landed in 1976, provided more information. |
| In December 1996, NASA launched the Mars Pathfinder, which made a successful landing on Mars in July 1997 on a flood plain called Ares Vallis. After initial technical problems, its 0.3-m/1-ft rover, Sojourner, began to explore the Martian landscape and to transmit data back to Earth. Pathfinder sent its final transmission on 27 September 1997. |
| In May 1997, US scientists announced that Mars is becoming increasingly cold and cloudy. Images from the Hubble Space Telescope showed that dust storms had covered areas of the planet that had been dark features in the early 20th century, including one section as large as California, USA. |
| The Mars Global Surveyor, launched on 7 November 1996, entered Martian orbit in September 1997. Its data revealed that Mars's magnetic field is a mere 800th that of the Earth. In February 1999, the spacecraft established its orbit for mapping the surface of the planet. In 2001, it located two regions on the surface rich in haematite, providing further evidence for the existence of water at some time in the planet's history. On 31 January 2001, Mars Global Surveyor completed its primary mission and then went into an extended mission phase, continuing to transmit data back to Earth. |
| NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter to monitor weather on Mars was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in December 1998. It was expected to reach its destination in September 1999. However, a measurement error caused the probe to fly too close to Mars and break up. Workers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Colorado had given acceleration data in pounds of force, but navigators at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory had assumed the numbers were metric newtons. |
| NASA launched its Mars Polar Lander in January 1999, which was designed to search for ice with a shovel and send back sounds from an attached microphone. It arrived near Mars on schedule, but in December 1999 it had apparently burned up or crashed, ending the US$165 million mission, and provoking criticism of NASA's Mars exploration programme. |
| In December 2000, a New Zealand scientist revealed that he had managed to grow vegetables in soil taken from Martian meteorites, and that they grew better than vegetables grown in New Zealand farming soil. This supports the contention that human beings can successfully exploit resources on other planets. |
| The NASA probe Mars Odyssey was launched in April 2001, and discovered water in the form of subsurface ice at Mars's south pole in March 2002. |
| The European Space Agency's Mars Express was launched on 2 June 2003 and has discovered methane and water ice during orbits of that planet. It carried a lander for soil collection, Beagle 2, which descended to the surface on 25 December 2003 but communications were immediately lost. |
| NASA announced in July 2000 its plans to land another robot-controlled rover on Mars, after the success of Sojourner in 1997. The Mars Exploration Rover Mission consisted of two spacecraft launched on 10 June and 7 July 2003, each carrying a rover. Named Spirit and Opportunity, the twin rovers successfully landed on, respectively, 3 January and 24 January 2004. They found traces of water formerly present, and NASA extended their activity five months beyond their original three-month mission. US president George W Bush announced in January 2004 plans to send and return astronauts to Mars in the 21st century. |
Mars| Series of largely unsuccessful Soviet space probes launched towards the planet Mars between 1962 and 1996. Contact with Mars 1, launched in November 1962, was lost en route. Mars 1969A and Mars 1969B both crashed to Earth soon after their respective launches in 1969. Mars 2 crashed on Mars on 27 November 1971, becoming the first spacecraft from Earth to reach the planet. Mars 3 landed safely five days later and transmitted video pictures for 20 seconds before communication was lost. Mars 4 and Mars 5, launched in July 1973, were intended to be orbiters but only Mars 5 achieved orbit. Mars 6 and Mars 7 were launched in August 1973, but contact was lost with Mars 6 on its final descent and Mars 7 failed to enter orbit. |
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