20 Interesting Facts about Mars

Here is a list of 20 interesting facts about planet Mars which you didn’t know. These facts will amaze you, and you will find that there are a lot of fun and interesting facts about the red planet Mars which you didn’t know!

Interesting Mars Fact List :

• Mars is home to Olympus Mons, which is the largest volcano in our solar system, standing 21km high and 600km wide across the base!
• Mars gets its red colour from the iron oxide dust on its surface!
• Mars gets its name from the Roman god of war of the same name!
• Mars is the second smallest planet in the solar system, after Mercury!
• On its one-year anniversary, the NASA’s Curiosity Rover sang “Happy Birthday” tune to itself on Mars!
• Till date, only 4 countries/group have been able to successful send rockets to Mars: The USA, European Space Agency, Russia and India!
• Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos!
• Unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field!
• Mars’ seasons are twice as long as those on Earth since it takes Mars 687 days to orbit the sun which is twice as long as Earth’s 365-day journey!
• The first successful Mars flyby was achieved by the Mariner 4 in 1965!
• In 1976, Viking 1 became the first human spacecraft to successfully land operational on the surface of Mars!
• India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is the cheapest Mars mission ever costing just $72 million!
• The Hollywood movie Gravity was more expensive than India’s Mars Orbiter Mission!
• Mars lacks an ozone layer, as a result each time the sun rises, Mars’s surface is bathed in a lethal dose of radiation!
• Mars has the largest dust storms in the whole solar system which can even last for months!
• Mars’s specific gravity is about 37% of earth’s specific gravity. Which means that you can jump on mars nearly 3 times as high as you can jump on earth!
• Sun appears half the size on Mars as what it does on Earth!
• The sun appears half it’s size when viewed from Mars, as compared to Earth!
• In 1609, Galileo Galilee became the first person to observe Mars through a telescope!
• Mars is the only planet to be solely occupied by man-made robots!

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