85 Interesting Facts About Mars

Last updated on February 15th, 2024

54. Unlike the Earth, on Mars sunsets are blue.

55. There is no human population on Mars as of today but there are robots inhabiting the Red Soil. And there are 7 of those.

56. Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and Venus can be seen with the naked eye and not any other planets.

57. NASA is the only space exploration agency that has managed to land on Mars so far.

58. Mars is about half the width of Earth. Its equatorial diameter is 6,780 kilometers (4,213 miles).

59. According to NASA, it would roughly take 2 and a half years to make a round trip to Mars from Earth. This also includes the time that the astronauts would have to allow Mars and Earth to re-align for the return trip.

60. “Seek Signs Of Life” is the exploration strategy that NASA is currently following to find out the possibilities of life on Mars in the past or present.

61. In an attempt to find the possibility of life on Mars, scientists are typically interested in finding the evidence of water and organics – the chemical building blocks of life.

62. Mars has a system of air, water, ice, and geology; in other terms, it has an atmosphere, a hydrosphere, a cryosphere and a lithosphere. It has the essential systems that characterize our Earth.

63. Did you know that scientists have tried to grow plants in soil that mimics Martian soil? Yes, and they have succeeded in their attempt to grow tomatoes, peas, and rye from the said soil. Now, this is going to help those wishing to spend some time on the Red Planet.

64. In 2016, scientists with the help of an exploration rover Curiosity have discovered a mineral called “tridymite” on Mars. This discovery is now questioning the earlier assumptions based on the history of the planet. This fact now makes us believe that the planet had a more violent and explosive volcanic activity in the yesterdays.

65. Worm-like aliens have been recently spotted on Mars surface by NASA JPL’s Mars orbiter. This spacecraft has been orbiting Mars for the past 11 years. Read more here.

About Martian moons

66. Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos, seem to be captured meteorites. They were discovered in 1877 by the American astronomer Asaph Hall III, and named after the sons of the Greek god of war Ares (Roman god Mars).

67. Phobos is the innermost and largest of the two moons of Mars. Its orbit is getting closer to the planet, and it is thought that it will either crash into or break apart in about 50 million years.

68. Deimos is the outermost and smallest of the two moons of Mars. Its surface looks smooth due to the loose dirt that fills the craters.

69. Mars’ surface looks like a red desert with volcanoes, craters and canyons. The northern hemisphere is a relatively smooth, low-lying volcanic plain; while the southern hemisphere is a crater-covered highland.

70. The largest canyon system in Mars is called “Valles Marineris” and is about 10 times larger than the Grand Canyon on Earth. It is 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) long, and reaches depths of up to 7 kilometres (4 miles). The Grand Canyon is around 800 kilometres (500 miles) long, and 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) deep.

71. The largest volcano in the Solar System can be found on Mars. “Olympus Mons” is three times taller than Earth’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest.

72. The largest crater on Mars is called the “Borealis Basin”, and covers 40% of the planet’s surface.

73. The temperature changes on Mars are extreme, from 20 °C (70 °F) to -153 °C (225 °F). The atmosphere is so thin that the heat from the Sun is not retained for long.

74. Mars has no magnetosphere. Its core is smaller and colder than Earth’s so it has no ability to maintain a magnetic field. However, there are some indications that it had one 4 billion years ago.

Exploration

75. Mars is the only planet in the Solar System completely inhabited by robots. Between stationary landers (designed to reach the surface and telemeter data back to Earth), penetrators (designed to entering the surface of the planet and telemeter data to an orbiter craft for re-transmission to Earth), and rovers (electrically powered devices to explore the planet’s surface), there are 23 robots on Mars.

76. There are six rovers, i.e. planetary surface exploration devices, on Mars. Two are currently active: Curiosity and Perseverance; and four are inactive: Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Zhurong.

77.The first high-resolution image of Mars was taken in 1956 through a telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, USA.

78. The first mission to successfully orbit Mars was Mariner 9 in 1971.

79. The first mission to land on Mars was Mars 3 in 1971; however, it was only operational for 110 seconds and only transmitted an image without details.

80. The Viking 1 mission landed on Mars in 1976, and provided the first picture ever taken from the surface of the planet.

81. The first rover (planetary surface exploration device) to successfully land on Mars was Sojourner, as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission, in 1997.

82. The helicopter “Ingenuity”, which arrived to Mars in 2021 with the rover “Perseverance”, was the first aircraft to make a controlled flight on another planet.

83. “Dust devils” are convective vortices loaded with dust, and are common on Mars. The rover “Perseverance” recorded data about the size and speed of one, but more importantly, it recorded its sound.

84. Preparing a crewed mission to Mars requires extensive planning and preparation, including the development of a spacecraft capable of sustaining the astronauts during the long trip. NASA has developed the spacecraft Orion as part of the Artemis program, which objective is to take astronauts to the Moon first, and then to Mars. Orion is currently being tested without a crew.

85. Aurorae have been detected on Mars. As the planet does not have a global magnetic field, they are not restricted to the poles, and can even cover the whole planet.

Quick facts about Mars