Name and Symbol
It was named after the Roman God of War, Ares. It's symbol looks like his helmet. Mars is also referred to as the Red Planet, because it appears red due to the iron oxide coating it's surface. Iron oxide is rust, meaning the planet is actually rusting.
Discovery
This planet was discovered by Ancient Egyptian astronomers.
Moons
It has two moons: Phobos and Deimos. They are thought to be captured asteroids. They were named after the Roman God's dogs in the Iliad.
Location
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, situated 228 million kilometers away from the Sun and 54.6 million kilometers away from the Earth.
Atmosphere
Mars's atmosphere is composed of Carbon Dioxide with small amounts of Nitrogen, Argon, Krypton and Carbon Monoxide.
Mars and Earth
Apart from Earth, of course, Mars is the planet we have taken the most interest in. This might be because Mars is quite similar to Earth. There is evidence to suggest there used to be water on Mars, for one. Also, Mars has seasons, canyons, volcanoes, and polar ice caps.
Size
It has half of Earth's diameter.
It is 11% of Earth's mass.
Orbit Size: 227,943,824 km.
Volume : 163,115,609,799 km cubed.
Mass: 641,693,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg.
Density: 3.934 g/cm cubed.
Surface Area: 144,371,391 km squared.
Rotation and Revolution
Mars's rotation period is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds, which is quite similar to Earth, however it's revolution period is of 686.971 Earth days, which is approximatley double an Earth year.
Weather
Mars is further away from the Sun, so it has an average temperature of negative 60 degrees.
Missions
There have been many missions to Mars. Mars exploration has occured in three staged thus far: fly-bys, orbiters, and landers and rovers. 
Fly-bys = Mariner 3-4, Mariner 6-7
Orbiters = Mariner 8-9, Viking 1-2, Mars Observer, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Climate Orbiter, 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Landers and Rovers = Viking 1-2, Pathfinder, Polar Lander/Deep Space 2, Spirit, Opportunity, Pheonix
There are three missions on Mars right now. The first is Pathfinder. It is an American spacecraft and consists of a lander and a lightweight. The lightweight is called Sojourner. The other two are Spirit and Opportunity, and they were sent by NASA and are sisters. Pathfinder doesn't work anymore, but the other two do.
One very interesting video about Mars can be found on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCYFzKoWsGw
If you want to know more about the presentations going on go to: http://zagreb.ceesa.net/
Hi Fabi,
ReplyDeleteThis is a big improvement in blogging! I like your pictures, hyperlinked links, and detailed but easy-to-understand text. You could have had at least one more link, though, and you could have included more than one color. I think you could have linked to your notes or the Moodle science page, not just Moodle in general because it is hard to find out where to go from there. Your labels are correct, and the video was very good! Nice job! :)
Fabi - nice work on this post, I can tell you looked at the rubric before publishing. Your grammar, spelling and punctuation all look great. You covered majority of the information you covered in class, but I do think you could have gone a bit further, especially with the missions. Your pictures look great, you did not caption them, but placement helps with that aspect. I liked the link and that you included it, but you did not link to your particular notes. Maybe another link would help taken it even further. Overall though, good improvement from last post. ~Ms. D.
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