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:

1. Mars is home to Olympus Mons, which is the largest volcano in our solar system, standing 21km high and 600km wide across the base.
2. Mars gets its red colour from the iron oxide dust on its surface.
3. Mars gets its name from the Roman god of war of the same name.
4. Mars is the second smallest planet in the solar system, after Mercury.
5. On its one-year anniversary, the NASA’s Curiosity Rover sang “Happy Birthday” tune to itself on Mars.
6. Till date, only 4 countries/group have been able to successful send rockets to Mars: The USA, European Space Agency, Russia and India.
7. Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos.
8. Unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field.
9. 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.
10. The first successful Mars flyby was achieved by the Mariner 4 in 1965.
11. In 1976, Viking 1 became the first human spacecraft to successfully land operational on the surface of Mars.
12. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is the cheapest Mars mission ever costing just $72 million.
    

    NASA’s Curiosity Rover on the Martian surface.

13. The Hollywood movie Gravity was more expensive than India’s Mars Orbiter Mission.
14. Mars lacks an ozone layer, as a result each time the sun rises, Mars’s surface is bathed in a lethal dose of radiation.
15. Mars has the largest dust storms in the whole solar system which can even last for months.
16. 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.
17. Sun appears half the size on Mars as what it does on Earth.
18. The sun appears half it’s size when viewed from Mars, as compared to Earth.
19. In 1609, Galileo Galilee became the first person to observe Mars through a telescope.
20. Mars is the only planet to be solely occupied by man-made robots.

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