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Overview
Basic Mars InformationLong ago, when only the moon and the stars lit up the night sky, fear and foreboding rose whenever a blood-red dot looped its way across an otherwise still sky. Mars, the Red Planet, was a familiar and yet suspicious omen, a symbol for war and aggression for thousands of years.
Even as science progressed and great thinkers studied the skies, Mars has remained in the human imagination. Telescopes in the 1880s revealed strange markings on Mars which convinced massess of people that Mars had canals built by an alien race. Were these Martians warlike and should we fear an invasion?
Radio convinced us "yes" when a 1938 broadcast of "War of the Worlds" scared millions of listeners into believing that tentacled creatures had landed on Earth in their war machines.
Today, we know that there is no intelligent civilization on Mars, and our imagination turns to our own possibilities on the planet. The danger of Mars still lurks in our conscience. Mars is no place for the faint-hearted. Arid, rocky, cold and apparently lifeless, the Red Planet offers few hospitalities. Fans of extreme sports can rejoice, however, for the Red Planet will challenge even the hardiest souls among us. Home to the largest volcano in the solar system, the deepest canyon and crazy weather and temperature patterns, Mars looms as the ultimate lonely planet destination. We begin to brave the hardships because Mars is the only planet on which humans could one day settle, making it a place of hope as well as trepidation.
- MEAN RADIUS: 3388.0 km
- MASS: 0.108 (Earth=1)
- DENSITY: 3.94 (g/cm^3)
- GRAVITY: 0.380 (Earth=1)
- ORBIT PERIOD: 686.98 (Earth days)
- ROTATION PERIOD: 1.026 (Earth days)
- SEMIMAJOR AXIS OF ORBIT: 1.524 au
- ECCENTRICITY OF ORBIT: 0.093