The soil on the surface of Mars is rich in iron - this gives the planet its distinctive red colour, like rust. In fact, it is sometimes called the Red Planet.
Mars was the Roman god of war. The Greek equivalent is Ares. The planet probably got this name because of its (blood) red colour. The month of March gets its name from Mars.
For a long time it was thought that life might exist on Mars because telescopes on Earth showed features which looked like man-made canals. However, when they were seen close up by the Viking spacecraft in 1976, they look like huge natural canyons - one of them is 5,000km long. Mars is likely to be the next planet in the solar system to be visited by humans. |
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 4th nearest planet to the Sun
3rd smallest planet
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Diameter |
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6,794 km
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Mass |
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6.4 x 1023 kg
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Distance from Sun |
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227.9 million km
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Orbital time |
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687 Earth days
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Rotational period |
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1.03 Earth days
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Major moons |
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2
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How does that compare with the Earth? |
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Diameter |
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0.53 the diameter of the Earth
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Mass |
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0.11 the mass of the Earth
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Distance from Sun |
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1.52 the distance of the Earth from the Sun
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Orbit time |
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Mars takes 1.88 Earth years to orbit the Sun
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In August 2003, Mars came closer to the Earth than it had been for almost 60,000 years. To take advantage of this close approach, the spacecraft Beagle 2 attempted to land on Mars on Christmas Day 2003. Unfortunately contact was lost... |
