Roman God Of War: The Planet Mars

The planet Mars is named after the Roman god of War. The Greeks originally named the planet after their god of war, Ares. The Romans then followed suit and named the planet after their own god of war, Mars, because of the blood like red color. Mars gets this color from having a surface so rich in iron. The iron minerals oxidize and that causes the surface to appear completely bright red. The red looks so bright that it is able to be seen from the earth with the naked eye. The planet is ¾ red, it also has many dark spots and white at the poles, these are the planets polar ice caps.

Mars is the second smallest planet from the sun, Mercury being the first. It is 141,600,000 miles away from the sun. The planet is about half or 53% the size of

Mars like the earth, is tilted in relation to the sun, and also spins on an axis. Percival Lowell thought he was able to see the artificial canals on the planet. This later proved untrue, and astronomers figured that the atmosphere of the planet would not be able to support life like earth. The atmosphere was too thin. A magnetosphere is the area of space around the planet that charged particles are controlled by the objects magnetic field. 4 billion years ago Mars lost it’s magnetosphere. This was probably due to many astronomical disasters such as asteroid strikes. Mars’s atmosphere is formed of about 96% carbon dioxide. Mars and the Earth have about the same land mass. Also, the gravity on Mars is only 37% of the Earth’s. There is evidence that proves that the atmosphere of Mars was denser in the past. The seasons and weather of Mars is the closest to the planet Earth of all the planets. One Mars year is equal to about two Earth years because mars is further away from the sun than Earth. That is equal to about 687 earth days. The planet has an oval shaped orbit around the sun, causing the seasons to have drastic impacts. The days on mars are only slightly longer than days on earth, at about 24 hours and 39

Sometimes the storms even continue to take over the entire planet, or just corrupt a small section. These dust storms could last for months. The dust storms are more likely to take place when Mars is closest to the sun. These storms result in giant dunes, wind streaks, and wind-carved features on the planet.

There are two polar ice caps on the planet Mars. These ice caps are permanent, although they evaporate into cloud-like features when the planet is closest to the sun. Scientists believe that once, 3.5 billion years ago, Mars had some very large floods. However, he surface of as is too thin to be able to hold liquid water on the surface for long periods of time. Because of this, Mars and the Earth have the same amount of dry land, even though Mars is only half the size in diameter.

The Planet has many volcanoes, that gradually rise and are very sloped. Mars is also home to what astronomers have found to be the highest mountain in the solar system. Olympus Mons, a volcano, is about roughly three times the size of Mount Everest. This is probably due to the low gravitational pull, as the volcanoes can grow higher than the Earth's without collapsing under their own weight. Scientists believe that no eruptions take place on the planet