Landing on Mars – Science Essay
When we are on Mars, we are going to research on how we can build a colony on Mars and how we can survive there. We are looking for ways on how we can provide ourselves with oxygen, food and water, and how we can dispose of our
garbage without going to Earth and getting the supply’s we need. We need to know if the ground is stable enough to build structures on, we have to know the temperature, the soil, and the terrain. Mars is known as the Roman god of war or the Red planet. The surface on Mars is very rocky and has a lot of craters that are 18 kilometers in diameter and even larger. The surface of Mars is almost the same as the Earths surface except that the rocks on Mars look pink and red. Mars has dust storms that cover the entire planet. The particles in the dust suspend in the planet’s thin atmosphere and give the sky a pinkish orange glow. The surface on Mars is the closest planet surface to Earth. The atmosphere is very thin and is saturated with Carbon dioxide gas. There are also canyons and volcanoes, but they are not active, the soil is very rich in iron oxide, and also has ice caps just like the Earth containing frozen carbon dioxide. Surface temperature varies from –128 C (-199 F) during polar night to 27 C (80 F) at equator during midday. The volcanoes and canyons on Mars are the largest and deepest canyons in the solar system. The volcano that is on Mars is called Olympus Mons. Because of the tilt of the planets axis, it also has different seasons just like the Earth. The sun appears about half the size on Mars as it does on Earth. Data from the Mars Global indicates that Mars’s crust is about 80 kilometers thick in the southern hemisphere but only about 35 kilometers in the north hemisphere. The southern hemisphere of Mars is predominantly ancient cratered highlands somewhat similar to the Moon. Most of the northern hemisphere consists of plains which are much younger, lower in elevation and have a much more complex history. Mars has a low density compared to the other terrestrial planets indicates that it’s core contains a large amount of sulfur, iron, and iron sulfide. Sulfide is a mineral compound formed through the binding of sulfur and metal. Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) and water (0.03%). In our solar system, Mars is in between Earth and Jupiter. It is the fourth planet from the sun and is about 227.7 million kilometers away from it. It is the last of the inner planets and is the seventh largest planet in orbit, diameter, and mass. Mars is 72 million miles away from the Earth and it would take 2 ½ months to get there by spaceship.