Mars, the red planet, is the fourth planet from the sun and is located directly after the planet Earth. Mars is the second smallest planet in our solar system right after Mercury. Mars is named after the roman god of war. However, it is often just referred to as the red planet. This is due to iron oxide that is found on the surface that gives it its reddish look.
(Lawler, 2015)
Though we do not know who exactly discovered Mars, we do know that the first person to theorize that Mars was a planet was Nicolaus Copernicus. “Nicolaus Copernicus is the first astronomer to postulate that Mars and a few other bodies known at the time were planets. The heliocentric theory that he published in 1543 marked the first time that …show more content…
Mars’ Atmosphere The atmosphere on Mars is completely different from the atmosphere that is located on Earth. Mars no longer has a magnetosphere and has not had one for quite some time now. Some people conjecture that it has been gone for four billion years, they think that this has been caused by a large amount of asteroid strikes. Without the magnetosphere the solar winds directly interact with the …show more content…
Mars on the other hand has a core, though we are not entirely sure yet whether the core is a solid or liquid. Outside of the Mars core is the mantle. Mars has a roughly thirty-eight percent less gravity than Earths, this mean that objects will not fall as fast to the planet if they are thrown upwards for example. The escape velocity is “The speed an object needs to break free from the gravitational attraction of a planet, moon, or other body without further propulsion” (NASA/JPL, 2016). The escape velocity of Mars is eleven thousand two hundred and fifty-two miles per hour whereas Earth’s is twenty-five thousand and thirty miles per hour. This makes it harder to escapes earths gravitation pull than it would be to escape Mars’. This would make sense due to Mars having a smaller gravitation pull than Earth. Mars is roughly half of the size of Earth, this is the reason as to why the gravitational pull of Mars is less than