Did you know? NASA was once ridiculously sued for landing robots on the Martian surface.
Interesting, isn’t it? Just like this, there are several facts in this post about Mars, the planet that has fascinated humanity for generations, that you will love.
Fun Facts about Mars
1. Mars is named after the Roman God of war, Mars. And is the fourth planet from the Sun.
2. Mars is also known as the ‘Red Planet’ because, well, it’s red! This signature color comes from a large amount of iron oxide (rust) in its rocks and soil.
3. It is the second-smallest planet in the solar system after that pesky little runt, Mercury.
4. Mars is about 15% of the Earth’s volume, yet only 11% of Earth’s mass, this means that not only is Mars smaller than Earth but is also less dense.
Because of its diminished size, the gravity on Mars is slightly less than 40% as strong as the gravity we experienced on Earth.
5. You could jump around three times higher on Mars than you can on Earth due to the planet’s gravity.
Surprising Facts about Mars
6. Approximately 6.3 Mars could fit inside the Earth.
7. Despite the fact that Mars is much smaller than Earth, the two planets actually have roughly the same amount of land. This is because around two-thirds of the Earth by Oceans.
8. Mars wasn’t always the arid red desert that you know today. There is clear evidence that liquid water flowed in streams and rivers across the surface of the planet hundreds of millions of years ago. And one point, they even had oceans.
Even if the ancient oceans on Mars were there, they would have been rather smaller than ours, equivalent to only 1.5 percent of all the water on the Earth.
Wanna know how awesome our planet really is, then check out our post on 25 Mind-Blowing facts about Earth that everyone must know.
9. Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a magnetic field, which leaves the red planet without protection against deadly radiation from cosmic rays and solar flares causing high-level exposure to cancer.
10. No human has ever set his feet on Mars, but scientists have sent spacecraft there to help them research this fascinating planet. The first spacecraft to land on Mars was the Viking Landers, which touched down on the surface in 1976.
Interesting Facts about Mars characteristics
11. Mars regularly hosts the largest and most violent dust storms in the solar system. They can last for months and sometimes cover the entire planet in a swirling red dust cloud. Scary!
12. The temperature on Mars is significantly more variable than it is on Earth, with mild highs of 21.111°C(70°F) and harrowing lows of minus 107.222°C(225°F). This works out to an average Martian surface temperature of roughly minus 27.222°C(81°F). Jeez!
13. Because Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size we see when we watch sunsets here on Earth. Regardless of whether on mars or not it’s bad for your eyes.
14. Mars does have an atmosphere, but it is about 100 times thinner than Earth’s. To make matters worse, it mainly consists of carbon dioxide, argon, nitrogen, and a very small amount of oxygen and water vapor. So what I’m saying is you couldn’t breathe on Mars.
15. Because of Mars having hardly any atmosphere, its sunrises and sunsets appear blue rather than the traditional orange and red design we enjoy here.
Insane Facts about Mars
16. According to the 1967 United Nations treaty, nobody can own celestial bodies such as Mars or the moon.
17. But, In 2012 a small private company in the Netherlands called Mars One literally announced their plan to colonize Mars by the mid-2020s. This plan has been heavily criticized by the experts for a lack of awareness of the logistics involved in getting humans to Mars.
18. However, Over 100,000 people applied to be part of the Mars One program, which would involve a one-way trip to colonize the planet.
19. On the 24th of September 2014, the Indian Space Research Organization to Mars orbiter mission space probe entered its orbit of Mars. By doing so, India became the first nation on Earth to set spacecraft into Mars orbit on the very first try.
20. The first record of humanity’s awareness of Mars dates back to 1534 BC, it was spotted by ancient Egyptian astronomers.
In fact, Egyptians gave Mars its very first recorded name, Her Deshur or Horus the Red. Man! These ancient Egyptians are something else.
Crazy Facts about Mars
21. NASA used songs from various musical artists such as Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and The Doors, to wake up the Curiosity rover every morning on the surface of Mars.
22. That’s not all the music it plays on its first-anniversary curiosity played the happy birthday tune to itself all alone on Mars 😭
23. NASA was once sued by 3 men for ‘trespassing’ on Mars. In 1997, NASA was sued by three men from Yemen for trespassing on Mars with its Pathfinder spacecraft and Sojourner rover. The men claimed to have inherited the planet from their ancestors 3,000 years ago. F you NASA, stop trespassing their property.
Read more: 30 Mind-Blowing Space facts that will amaze you
24. Martian craters that are larger than 60 kilometers are named after to see scientists and authors who have contributed to the study, observation, and exploration of Mars. For example, there are craters named after Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin on Mars.
25. A day on Mars is slightly longer than a day here on earth blasting around 24 hours and 40 minutes.
Although Mars rotates slightly faster than Earth, it takes its sweet time orbiting the Sun, making a complete orbit around our shared star once every 687 Earth days. In other words, A Martian year is equal to 687 days on Earth.
That’s it for this post guys, I hope you had fun while reading about 25 Mind-Blowing Mars facts.
And in case you’re interested in reading other articles:
30 Mind-Blowing Space facts that will amaze you
15 Mind-Blowing facts about Ocean that everyone needs to know.
30 Weird and Awesome facts about Animals that will Amaze you
