Mars Research Paper

The planet Mars is the fourth farthest planet from the sun. Mars is very similar to our planet, but it also contains some different attributes that make it unique. In the past years, Mars has increasingly been in the limelight for astronomers as they continue to study the fascinating qualities of Mars, more specifically looking to see if life exists on the planet. Although Mars is very close to Earth, there is a great amount of unknown history from the planet. Mars was named by the Romans after their god of war, because the planet had a red, blood-like color. From a viewers perspective, Mars appears as a rusty red color. This is because the planet has a rich surface of iron oxide. The iron oxide formed a long time ago when there was
For the planet to spin 360 degrees, it takes 24 hours and 40 minutes. This Martian day is called a “Sol”. The Martian day is extremely close to an Earth day, theirs is only 40 minutes longer. For Mars to rotate around the sun, it takes about 687 Earth days. The red planet’s orbit around the sun is about 1.88 times Earth’s. The orbit takes longer because Mars is farther from the sun than Earth is. It’s orbit is not a perfect circle either, some parts are much farther away from the sun than other parts. There is a 19% difference in the distance from the closest to farthest distance in it’s orbit. On average Mars is 1.52 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun, and Earth is 1 AU from the Sun. An AU is approximately 93 million miles, so Mars is almost 1.5 the distance from Earth to the Sun. Also Mars and Earth both have similar qualities regarding how they are positioned on their axes. Mars is positioned 25 degrees on it’s axis, very close to Earth’s 23.5 degrees. That being said, the degree means that Mars has seasons. Since it takes Mars almost twice the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun, that means that it’s seasons will be about twice as long as ours. The degree at which Mars rotates on it’s axis at has changed throughout time. Scientists, unsure why this phenomenon is happening, believe that the tilt has decreased over time, which is a possible reasoning for the underground reservoirs of ice at lower latitudes. When the
There have been guesses that people will land on Mars within our lifetime. Satellites and rovers have all been studying the planet closely and watching trends, gathering information, and taking photos of our red next door neighbor. The movie, “The Martian”, shows detailed interpretations what the planet looks like and the movie is about a NASA astronaut that lands on Mars, which gives viewers and the public good ideas of the reddish color landscape. In the upcoming years, even more unmanned missions are bound for Mars as scientists are optimistic that forms of life and water can be found there. Exploration of the planet is very tough though. As of September 2014, only 18/40 of the planned missions to the planet have been successful, and missions to Mars come with a huge price tag. Also, pieces of Mars have fallen to our planet, holding information about its atmosphere and composition of the