Mars: Top Ten Fun Facts

One of the first images taken by Perseverance on Mars!

Do you remember when I had the good fortune of chaperoning Team Mercury to the Kennedy Space Center? My daughter, along with her team of high school Space Exploration students and their teacher John Yi, took a trip to the KSC when they won NASA’s App Development Challenge. We watched the launch of a rocket, NASA’s Orion Ascent Abort-2, toured the building where rockets are built, the Vehicle Assembly Building, built our own rockets, stood under the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and learned about NASA’s work to get Perseverance to Mars through lectures and participation in the Mars Experience.

On February, 18, 2021, Perseverance landed on Jezero Crater on Mars, and the excitement of the engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab was palpable. Perseverance, which launched from Earth on July 30, 2020, will stay on Mars at lease one Mars year (657 Earth days) with a goal of seeking “signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.” Hon, did you watch the landing? Want to view raw images from Mars? Click here.

Top Ten Fun Facts About Mars

1. Mars is named after the Roman God of war.
2. Mars is red because of rusty iron in the ground.
3. The average temperature on Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. 
4. There are signs of ancient floods on Mars, but now water mostly exists in icy dirt and thin clouds.
5. A day on Mars is 24 hours and 37 minutes.
6. A year on Mars is 687 Earth days because it takes a lot longer than Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun.
7. Mars has two moons. Their names are Phobos and Deimos.
8. Based on the make-up of the planet and atmosphere (iron, magnesium, sulfur, acids and CO₂), researchers have concluded that Mars smells like rotten eggs.
9. Mars is home to the highest mountain in our solar system, a volcano called Olympus Mons, which is about three times the height of Mount Everest.
10. The first spacecrafts to land on Mars were the Viking Landers, which touched down on the surface in 1976.

Sources: NASA Science Space Place, Australian Academy of Science, National Geographic Kids