by Ian H.
The distance from Mars to the sun is 1,420, 000,000 miles. It takes 687 days to be a year and it takes 24 hours and 37 minutes to be a day on Mars. Early in the 1600s the telescope was invented.That was how scientists saw Mars. They could see the Martian surface. They saw light white patches covering the poles. In the late 1950's the space age dawned. Using unmanned space probes humankind was finally capable of escaping earth and exploring the mysteries of space. With the question of life on Mars still unanswered, a voyage to the red planet had top priority. In 1965, after years of research and development a sophisticated spacecraft named Mariner 4 left the earth in a thundering blaze of fire.
Months later, Mariner 4 became the first man-made object to fly past Mars. Cameras on Mariner 4 transmitted twenty pictures back to earth.
The largest volcano in our solar system is on Mars. It is Olympus moons. It is a volcano. It is 17 miles tall and over 370 miles across the base. Big enough to stretch from Boston to Baltimore. A volcano this big on earth would collapse under its own weight. But in the smaller Martian gravity it stands tall.In the 1880's the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiapotrelli reported what he called "canali"on the surface of Mars. Mars was named after a Roman goddess of war.
Some of this information came from the book 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Science.
by Carl
For many years people thought about the possibility of life on Mars. Finally when scientists sent rockets to the planet, it seemed we would get some answers. In 1964, a probe, Mariner 4, was sent to Mars. In July, 1965 this probe passed with in 6,000 miles ( 9,600 km) of Mars and took nineteen close - up photographs that it beamed back to Earth.This may explain why the ancient Romans named the planet after Mars, their bloody god of war. This information came from the books The Red Planet Mars and Comptons Encyclopedia.
