Time for some Mars facts in honor of the historic launch that happened today!
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1. One of Mars’s two moons- Phobos is going to crash into Mars’s surface or get ripped apart and form rings around the planet. This will happen in about 30-50 million years.
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2. There are pieces of Mars on Earth!
In the planet’s past, it was bombarded by large asteroids. Most of the debris fell back onto the planet, but some of it was ejected into space, and some found its way to Earth. These meteorites were sampled and confirmed to be Martian.
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3. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war.
This is thought to be because of the planet’s “blood-red” color which was also used by other ancient cultures. Chinese astronomers called Mars the “Fire Star.”
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4. Only 16 of the 39 Mars missions have been successful! (Good luck, Percy!)
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5. The Sun is about half the size from Mars as it is from Earth!
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6. The orbit of Mars is the most eccentric of the 8 planets!
This means that its orbit is the least circular.
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7. Mars does not have a magnetic field.
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8. A Martian day is only about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.
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9. Valles Marineris is nearly 5 times deeper, 4 times longer and 20 times wider than the Grand Canyon!
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10. Mars and Earth have approximately the same landmass!

There you go! Those are some facts about Mars! Hope you learned something about the infamous “Red Planet!”