:: Mars ::

Mars is the 4th planet from the Sun. It is named after the Roman god of war, most likely because of its red appearance.

Although Mars is just one fifth of the size of the Earth, it has many things in common. Mars has seasons very similar to earth, it has a spring, summer, autumn and a winter. This is due to the rotational tilt of the planet being nearly the same as Earths. Because Mars is further from the Sun than the Earth it takes longer to orbit around it. In fact Mars takes nearly twice as long to orbit the Sun as the Earth does. Because of this, 1 year on Mars is the equivalent to nearly 2 years on Earth (687 Earth days).

Main features on Mars

Olympus Mons: Mars is home to the biggest known mountain in the solar system. Olympus Mons stands about 27km (16.77 miles) high! This is about 3 times as high as Mount Everest which stands at 8.8km (5.47 miles).

Valles Marineris: The Valles Marineris was named after the Mariner 9 Mars orbiter which discovered it in 1971 / 72. Valles Marineris is a canyon that is over 4000km (2480 miles) long and more than 200 km (124 miles) wide. That makes this canyon the biggest known canyon in the solar system.

How to find Mars with your telescope.

Mars follows a very similar orbit around the Sun to the Earth but takes nearly twice as long to complete. This is because Earth orbits closer to the Sun than Mars so it has less distance to cover to complete a full orbit (Earth has the inside track).
Take a look at the illustrations below:

Figure 1: Earth vs Mars orbitting pattern

Dates of Mars Opposition Date Dist. From Earth Magnitude August 28th 2003 34.6 Million Miles -2.88 November 7th 2005 43.1 Million Miles -2.33 December 24th 2007 54.7 Million Miles -1.64 January 29th 2010 61.7 Million Miles -1.28 March 3rd 2012 62.6 Million Miles -1.23 April 8th 2014 57.4 Million Miles -1.48 May 22nd 2016 46.7 Million Miles -2.06 July 27th 2018 35.7 Million Miles -2.78 October 13th 2020 38.5 Million Miles -2.62 Source:http://seds.org/~spider/spider/Mars/marsopps.html

Notice that the Earth has a much tighter orbit around the Sun than Mars does. The best time to view Mars is when it is at opposition. This occurs every two years when the Earth is positioned directly between the Sun and Mars.

A picture of Mars taken from the Hubble Space Telescope

:: Facts ::

Mars is the 4th planet from the Sun.

Mars was named after the Roman god of war. Probably because of its redish colour

Diameter: 6794.4 km (roughly half the size of Earth

Martian Day: 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds

Martian Year: 685 Earth days, 18 hours.

Orbits the Sun every 687 days (1 year)

Average Distance from Sun: 142 million miles

Temperatures vary from -200°F to up to 68°F in the summer.

Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos

:: Information on the Planets ::
Mercury	Venus	Earth	Mars	Jupiter	Saturn	Uranus	Neptune