Mars
Fun fact
Mars was named after the Roman god of war
The fourth planet is Mars, orbiting at around 230 km or 1.5 AU from the sun. It has a radius of 3400 km and has 2 small moons called Phobos and Deimos, which probably were asteroids that got captured by the planet’s gravity.
Mars is a cold dry planet, with almost no atmosphere or magnetic field. The entire surface is covered with a red Martian soil containing iron oxide, which gives it its color. Aside from the occasional dust storm, there is little activity.
The temperature on Mars varies greatly because there is no atmosphere to keep heat in. during the daytime, it can be as hot as 20 C, but in the night, it drops to -70 C. at the poles the temperature is less than -120 C. because the pressure is too low for water, all the water is stored in the polar ice caps, made of frozen water and solid carbon dioxide. These ice caps contain about as much water as Lake Superior.
On the surface of Mars, there are many craters. Although not very active, Mars has many volcanoes, including the tallest volcano and mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, which is over 26 km tall. Mars also has a huge canyon called Valles Marineris, which is over 4000 km long and up to 7 km deep.
Despite the conditions, Mars is relatively suitable for life compared to the other planets. Not only does it have some important chemicals in its soil, it also has a relatively mild temperature at the equator. Because of this, some extremophiles, Earth’s most resilient bacteria, might be able to survive on Mars for months or even years.
Because it is relatively close to Earth, Mars is also a good and popular option for human colonization in the future. So far, we have sent many rovers to Mars to collect information, and plan to have a human visit Mars within the next few decades. We also have many plans being made for how such a colony could work. Who knows what the future will bring?