Mars Facts for Kids

The Red Planet!

Mars is called "The Red Planet" because its soil is full of iron oxide - that is just a fancy word for rust! The whole planet is covered in rusty red dust. It is like Mars is one big rusty rock!

Blue Sunsets!

On Mars, sunsets look BLUE instead of red and orange like on Earth! That is the opposite of what we see here. Martian dust in the air scatters light in a special way that turns the sky blue near the sun at sunset. How cool is that?

Smaller Than Earth

Mars is much smaller than Earth. You could fit about 6 and a half Mars inside Earth! If Earth were a basketball, Mars would be about the size of a golf ball.

Super Jump Planet!

Mars has much weaker gravity than Earth - only 38% as strong! That means if you could jump 1 meter high on Earth, you could jump about 3 meters high on Mars! You would feel super bouncy!

Almost Earth Days!

A day on Mars is called a "sol" and it lasts 24 hours and 37 minutes - almost exactly the same as an Earth day! Mars spins at nearly the same speed as Earth. Scientists who work with Mars rovers use "sol" to count Martian days.

Long Mars Year

Mars takes 687 Earth days to orbit the Sun - that is almost 2 Earth years for just 1 Mars year! If you were 10 years old in Mars years, you would actually be almost 19 in Earth years!

Four Seasons Like Earth!

Mars has four seasons just like Earth - spring, summer, fall, and winter! This is because Mars tilts on its axis almost the same way Earth does. But each season on Mars lasts about twice as long as on Earth!

Tallest Volcano Ever!

Olympus Mons is the tallest volcano in the entire solar system! It is 3 times taller than Mount Everest and as wide as the entire state of Arizona! It is so huge that if you stood on top, you could not even see the edges because they are over the horizon!

Mega Canyon!

Valles Marineris is the largest canyon system in the solar system! It stretches as far as driving from New York City to Los Angeles. The Grand Canyon could fit inside it 10 times over! It is so wide and deep it makes the Grand Canyon look tiny!

Planet-Wide Dust Storms!

Mars can have dust storms so enormous they cover the ENTIRE planet for months at a time! These mega-storms can block so much sunlight that solar-powered rovers stop working. In 2018, a massive dust storm ended NASA's Opportunity rover mission after 15 years!

Freezing Cold!

The average temperature on Mars is -80 degrees Fahrenheit, which is -62 degrees Celsius. That is much colder than the coldest places on Earth! At the poles in winter, it can drop to -195 degrees Fahrenheit. You would need a very warm spacesuit!

Unbreathable Air!

The air on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide - the same gas you breathe OUT! Humans would suffocate immediately without a spacesuit. The air is also very thin, about 100 times thinner than Earth's, so there is barely any pressure. You definitely need a helmet on Mars!

Water Long Ago!

Billions of years ago, liquid water flowed across Mars in rivers and oceans! Scientists have found ancient riverbeds, shorelines, and lake beds. Something changed Mars from a warm wet world into the cold dry desert it is today. Was there life back then? We do not know yet!

Polar Ice Caps!

Mars has ice caps at both its north and south poles, just like Earth! But Mars ice caps are made of two types of ice: water ice and dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide). In summer, some of the dry ice turns into gas, making the ice caps shrink!

Two Potato Moons!

Mars has two tiny moons named Phobos and Deimos, which mean "fear" and "dread" in Greek! They are not round like our Moon - they look like lumpy potatoes! They are so small that if they were on Earth, you could drive across them in a few hours!

Phobos Goes Backwards!

Mars's moon Phobos is really weird! It orbits Mars so fast that it goes around the planet 3 times in a single Martian day. And because it goes so fast, it rises in the WEST and sets in the EAST - the opposite of how our Moon moves! Phobos is also slowly getting closer to Mars and will crash into it in about 50 million years!

Robots on Mars!

Right now, NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are exploring the surface of Mars! Curiosity has been roaming Mars since 2012 and Perseverance landed in 2021. They drive around taking pictures, collecting rocks, and doing science experiments - all controlled by scientists back on Earth!

First Mars Helicopter!

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter made history by being the first aircraft ever to fly on another planet! It completed 72 flights on Mars before its mission ended in 2024. Flying on Mars is super hard because the air is so thin - it is like flying at 100,000 feet above Earth!

Rock Samples for Earth!

The Perseverance rover is collecting rock samples from Mars and sealing them in special tubes! One day, a future mission will pick up these tubes and fly them back to Earth for scientists to study. This would be the first Mars rocks ever brought to Earth - they might even contain signs of ancient life!

God of War!

Mars is named after the Roman god of war! Ancient Romans named it Mars because its reddish color reminded them of blood and fire. Many other cultures also named it after war or fire. The ancient Egyptians called it "Her Desher" which means "the red one"!