Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, being larger than only Mercury. In English, Mars carries the name of the Roman god of war and is often referred to as the "Red Planet". At its equator, Mars has a diameter of 4,222 miles (6,794 km), but from pole to pole, the diameter is 4,196 miles (6,752 km). Mars' radius is, of course, half of planet's diameter. The atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than Earth's. The Red Planet's atmosphere contains more than 95% carbon dioxide and much less than 1% oxygen. People would not be able to breathe the air on Mars. Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system. The massive Martian mountain towers high above the surrounding plains of the red planet, and may be biding its time until the next eruption. Mars doesn't have an intrinsic global magnetic field, but the solar wind directly interacts with the atmosphere of Mars, leading to the formation of a magnetosphere from magnetic field tubes. Human survival on Mars would require living in artificial Mars habitats with complex life-support systems. One key aspect of this would be water processing systems. Being made mainly of water, a human being would die in a matter of days without it. Mars may look hot, but don't let its color fool you Mars is actually pretty cold! In orbit, Mars is about 50 million miles farther away from the Sun than Earth. That means it gets a lot less light and heat to keep it warm. Mars also has a hard time holding onto the heat it does get. Mars is known as the Red Planet because iron minerals in the Martian soil oxidize, or rust, causing the soil and atmosphere to look red. Scientists have conducted plant experiments simulating Martian conditions using volcanic soil in Hawaii, which is known for its similarity to Martian soil. These experiments found that plants can actually grow in these soils. The atmosphere on Mars is mostly made of carbon dioxide. It is also 100 times thinner than Earth's atmosphere, so even if it did have a similar composition to the air here, humans would be unable to breathe it to survive. The spacecraft departs Earth at a speed of about 24,600 mph (about 39,600 kph). The trip to Mars will take about seven months and about 300 million miles (480 million kilometers). Mars was formed at the same time as the rest of the Solar System, from a large spinning disk of gas and dust. Astronomers think that all this happened about 4.6 billion years ago! So Mars is about 4.6 billion years old. A day in mars is 24 hours and 37mins. Temperatures on Mars average about -81 degrees F. However, temperatures range from around -220 degrees F. in the wintertime at the poles, to +70 degrees F. over the lower latitudes in the summer. Mars has two small moons: Phobos and Deimos. Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic) were named after the horses that pulled the chariot of the Greek war god Ares, the counterpart to the Roman war god Mars. Both Phobos and Deimos were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall. The moons appear to have surface materials similar to many asteroids in the outer asteroid belt, which leads most scientists to believe that Phobos and Deimos are captured asteroids.

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