Martians and Aliens from Mars have been a fascinating subject in our popular fiction since recorded human history. But why is it that this one neighbourhood planet seems to enjoy this distinction. Is it idle gossip or based on sound scientific facts? Whatever the case, the spirit of enquiry forces to get acquainted with some basic yet amazing facts about our nearest planet.
10) ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY
Due to its blood red color, the ancient Romans and Greeks considered it as the God of War. While it was the Romans who named it as Mars, the Greeks called it as Ares. Even in other parts of the ancient world, the Chinese astronomers called it "The Star of Fire while ancient Egyptian priests called it "Her Desher meaning "the red one. Even the very name of the city Cairo is Arabic for "Mars which was reportedly in the rising horizon on the day of the city's foundation.
9) PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Mars has a blood red color and is the fourth planet from the sun. It is the last of the terrestrial planets. The red color Mars is due to the rock and dust covering its surface being rich in iron. It is about 227,940,000 km from the sun. The land masses of Mars and Earth are very similar. Although Mars is only 15% of the volume and 10% of the mass of the earth, it actually has a similar earth mass because the water covers approximately 70% of the earth's surface. The surface gravity of Mars is about 37% of the gravity found on Earth. This means that on Mars you could theoretically jump 3 times higher than you could on earth. On Mars the Sun appears about half the size as it does on Earth.
8) MARTIAN CLIMATE
A Martian year is the equivalent of 687 Earth days while a day on the Red Planet only lasts 40 minutes more than one on Earth. At the closest point to the Sun, the Martian southern hemisphere is closer towards the Sun, causing a short but extremely hot summer. But simultaneously, the northern hemisphere goes through a brief but cold winter due to its far distance from the Sun. They can last for months and cover the entire planet. The Martian seasons are extreme due to its elliptical or oval-shaped orbit around the Sun. It is reportedly more elongated than most of the other planets in the solar system.
7) HOME TO INTELLIGENT LIFE?
Mars has been believed to be the home of intelligent life since ancient times by astronomers and scientists alike. This notion gained more believers especially after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli discovered lines or grooves resembling water canals, which according to him had not occurred naturally, but artificially. These were later shown to be an optical illusion. But later in the 20th century, there were discoveries of signs of liquid water on Mars. For years Mars has been known to have water in the form of ice. In satellite images, signs of trickling water are dark stripes or stains on crater wall and cliffs. It is believed that this water has to be salty, which prevents it from freezing or vaporizing, in turn leading to Mar's present day dry climate.
6) PIECES OF MARS FOUND ON EARTH
Another fascinating connection is that pieces of Mars rocks or Martian meteorites were found on Earth, containing what is believed to be traces of the Martian atmosphere. Scientists are of the opinion that these meteorites were expelled from the martian atmosphere due to high pressure volcanic eruptions. These then orbited the solar system for millions of years among other objects before crashing into the Earth. The study of these rocks has allowed scientists to understand more about Mars before launching missions to the red planet.
5) MARTIAN EXPEDITIONS FROM EARTH
The first Martian expeditions were started by the former USSR way back in 1960. The satellite was named "Marsnik 1. Since then 39 orbiting, landers and rovers have been sent. But less than half , that is only 16 of those became successful. By 2014, we have sent 40 missions to Mars. These missions include landings of measuring equipment such as rovers and orbiting. The most recent arrivals include the Mars Curiosity mission which arrived in 2012. In September of 2014, it was the MAVEN mission. This was followed by the the Mangalyaan orbiter belonging to the Indian Space Research Organization which again arrived days apart in September of 2014. The next missions to arrive will be the ExoMars mission, comprising an orbiter, lander, and a rover by the European Space Agency's. Next will be the InSight robotic lander mission by NASA in March 2016 planned to land in September of 2016. In 2016, the mars exobiology program in Europe will look for signs of Martian life on the planet as well as study the surface and terrain of the planet and map potential environmental hazards for future manned missions to Mars.
4) MARS HAS THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Mars is home to the tallest mountain in the solar system. Olympus-mons is the name given by our scientists to this mountain. It has a height of 25 km of height and measures 600km in diameter because of the shield volcano that was formed around it billions of years ago. This makes its diameter over twenty times wider than its height. Even the most recent readings and observations have led scientists to believe that the Volcano is still active. Nearly three times the height of Mt. Everest. Despite its great height, it has a very gentle slope. It is the same kind of volcano as the active volcanoes responsible for currently creating the islands of Hawaiian. The peripheral line around the mountain is called a basal cliff' and is as high as 6 kms.
3) MARS HAS THE LARGEST DUST STORMS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The orbit of mars around the Sun is the least circular among all of the planets in the Solar System. The shape of its orbit around the Sun happens to be eccentric. As we all know that seasons on a planet are created by minor tilts of a planet around its axis. Mars is tilted about its axis by around 25 degrees, whereas the axial tilt of earth is around 22 degrees. Therefore, due to the extremities in the Martian axis tilts, Mars too has seasons, but they are too extreme. Mars has seasons like earth, but they last twice as long. Mars experiences huge dust storms again the largest in our solar system. These fascinating dust storms last not for a few hours or days, but for several months. The Sun appears as half its size as viewed from Earth. When Mars is closer to the Sun in its orbit, the southern hemisphere points towards the sun and this causes a very short but very hot summer. In the north it experiences a brief but cold winter. When the planet is farther from the Sun, Mars experiences a mild summer for a longer duration due to the northern hemisphere pointing towards the sun. This compares to a cold, long winter in the south.
2) MARS HAS POLAR ICE CAPS
Mars is the only other planet besides the earth that has polar ice caps. The northern ice caps are called Planum Boreum whereas the southern polar caps are called Planum Australe. These polar ice caps have been found to contain huge traces of ice. It has been estimated that the quantity of water locked in just the southern polar caps is so huge that if melted, is sufficient to flood the entire planet with water. This has further enhanced its reputation as a planet capable of supporting life.
2) MARS HAS TWO MOONS !
Earth has only one satellite around its orbit called the Moon, whereas Mars has two. They are named Phobos and Deimos. Mysteriously, they were mentioned by the author Jonathan Swift in his book Gulliver's Travels' 151 years before they were discovered. It is understood that, Mars' largest moon Phobos will disintegrate due to gravitational forces in the next 20-40 million years. These disintegrated fragments will lead to the creation of a ring that will last upto 100 million years.
1) PLANS TO COLONIZE MARS BY 2025
In September of 2016, Elon Musk, an entrepreneur and CEO of SpaceX, announced his plans to send humanity to Mars at an affordable cost. He also announced that he just doesn't want inter-planetary travel to Mars made possible, but also wants to build a civilization of humans on Mars. He revealed that the first Mars flight would take place in 2022 by sending a spacecraft named as "The Heart of Gold, inspired by the name of the spaceship in Douglas Adams' book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This spaceship will measure as tall as a 40 storey building. Musk says the cost of the trip needs to come down to about $200,000, which is roughly equivalent to the cost of a house in the United States. The frequency of Martian flights would be every two years when Mars orbit is closest to Earth to around 57.6 million kilometres.
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