Mars
The Red Planet.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, known as the Red Planet for its orange-red colour. It is a cold, desert-like rocky world with a thin carbon-dioxide atmosphere, polar ice caps and no liquid surface water. It is about 6,779 km across, half the size of Earth, with about a third of Earth's surface gravity.
It has the tallest volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons (21.9 km), and the canyon system Valles Marineris, 4,000 km long. It has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Quick Facts
- Adjectives
- Martian
- Arean (rare, from Ares)
- see Name of Mars
- Synodic period
- 779.94 d
- Average speed
- 24.07 km/s
- Satellites
- 2 (Phobos and Deimos)
- Flattening
- 0.00589, 0.00015
- Density
- 3.9335 g/cm; 3
- Surface gravity
- 3.72076 m/s2
- Moment of inertia factor
- 0.3644, 0.0005
More in Celestial Bodies & Worlds
Elsewhere in Cosmos Codex
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