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Aug 8, 2018 · Explanation: Mars is also known as The Red Planet, often seen with a reddish tinge in dark night skies. Mars shines brightly at the upper left of this gorgeous morning twilight view from Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia, but the Moon and planet Earth look redder still.
APOD: 2018 August 9 - Red Planet, Red Moon, and Mars Contains: Solar system body or event View. Inverted monochrome Large size Full size User. View profile
- Why Is Mars called The Red Planet?
- Mars Q&A with An Expert
- Mars' Surface
- Mars' Moons
- Mars Quick Facts: Size, Composition and Structure
- Atmospheric Composition
- Magnetic Field
- Internal Structure
- Chemical Composition
- Mars' Polar Caps
The bright rust color Mars is known for is due to iron-rich minerals in its regolith — the loose dust and rock covering its surface. Earth's soil is a kind of regolith, too, albeit one loaded with organic content. According to NASA, the iron minerals oxidize, or rust, causing the soil to look red.
We asked David C. Agle media relations at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California which handles missions on the Martian surface such as the Perseverance Rover some questions about the Red Planet.
The planet's cold, thin atmospheremeans liquid water likely cannot exist on the Martian surface for any appreciable length of time. Features called recurring slope lineae may have spurts of briny water flowing on the surface, but this evidence is disputed; some scientists argue the hydrogen spotted from orbit in this region may instead indicate bri...
The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall over the course of a week in 1877. Hall had almost given up his search for a moon of Mars, but his wife, Angelina, urged him on. He discovered Deimos the next night, and Phobos six days after that. He named the moons after the sons of the Greek war god Ares ...
Mars is 4,220 miles (6,791 km) in diameter — far smaller than Earth, which is 7,926 miles (12,756 km) wide. The Red Planet is about 10% as massiveas our home world, with a gravitational pull 38% as strong. (A 100-pound person here on Earth would weigh just 38 pounds on Mars, but their mass would be the same on both planets.)
According to NASA, the atmosphere of Mars is 95.32% carbon dioxide, 2.7% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, 0.13% oxygen and 0.08% carbon monoxide, with minor amounts of water, nitrogen oxide, neon, hydrogen-deuterium-oxygen, krypton and xenon.
Mars lost its global magnetic field about 4 billion years ago, leading to the stripping of much of its atmosphereby the solar wind. But there are regions of the planet's crust today that can be at least 10 times more strongly magnetized than anything measured on Earth, which suggests those regions are remnants of an ancient global magnetic field.
NASA's InSight lander has been probing the Martian interior since touching down near the planet's equator in November 2018. InSight measures and characterizes marsquakes, and mission team members are tracking wobbles in Mars' tilt over time by precisely tracking the lander's position on the planet's surface. These data have revealed key insights ab...
Mars likely has a solid core composed of iron, nickel and sulfur. The mantle of Mars is probably similar to Earth's in that it is composed mostly of peridotite, which is made up primarily of silicon, oxygen, iron and magnesium. The crust is probably largely made of the volcanic rock basalt, which is also common in the crusts of the Earth and the mo...
Vast deposits of what appear to be finely layered stacks of water ice and dust extend from the poles to latitudes of about 80 degrees in both Martian hemispheres. These were probably deposited by the atmosphere over long spans of time. On top of much of these layered deposits in both hemispheres are caps of water ice that remain frozen year-round. ...
Jul 27, 2006 · At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach...
Jul 31, 2003 · Red and orange filters show Mars's surface markings best. As you move away from the red end of the spectrum toward the blue, you see less of the surface and more of the Martian atmosphere and clouds. In fact, with a violet filter such as a Wratten 47, surface markings are usually invisible.
Learn how to spot Mars in opposition, when the Red Planet is closest and brightest in the night sky, with BBC Science Focus Magazine.
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Jul 25, 2018 · The longest "blood moon" eclipse this century will coincide with Mars' closest approach in 15 years on Friday to offer skygazers a thrilling astronomical double bill.
