What is Mars: Definition and 504 Discussions

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, being larger than only Mercury. In English, Mars carries the name of the Roman god of war and is often referred to as the "Red Planet". The latter refers to the effect of the iron oxide prevalent on Mars's surface, which gives it a reddish appearance distinctive among the astronomical bodies visible to the naked eye. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, with surface features reminiscent of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth.
The days and seasons are comparable to those of Earth, because the rotational period as well as the tilt of the rotational axis relative to the ecliptic plane are similar. Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The smooth Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers 40% of the planet and may be a giant impact feature. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Mars trojan.Mars has been explored by several uncrewed spacecraft. Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to visit Mars; launched by NASA on 28 November 1964, it made its closest approach to the planet on 15 July 1965. Mariner 4 detected the weak Martian radiation belt, measured at about 0.1% that of Earth, and captured the first images of another planet from deep space. The Soviet Mars 3 mission included a lander, which achieved a soft landing in December 1971; however, contact was lost seconds after touchdown. On 20 July 1976, Viking 1 performed the first successful landing on the Martian surface. On 4 July 1997, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft landed on Mars and on 5 July released its rover, Sojourner, the first robotic rover to operate on Mars. The Mars Express orbiter, the first European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft to visit Mars, arrived in orbit on 25 December 2003. In January 2004, NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, both landed on Mars; Spirit operated until 22 March 2010 and Opportunity lasted until 10 June 2018. NASA landed its Curiosity rover on August 6, 2012, as a part of its Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission to investigate Martian climate and geology. On 24 September 2014, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) became the fourth space agency to visit Mars when its maiden interplanetary mission, the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft, arrived in orbit. The United Arab Emirates became the fifth to successfully undertake a mission to Mars, having inserted an orbiter into the Martian atmosphere on 9 February 2021. China National Space Administration (CNSA)'s Tianwen-1 spacecraft arrived in Martian orbit on 10 February 2021. NASA's Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter successfully landed on Mars on 18 February 2021. Ingenuity successfully completed the first powered controlled flight by an aircraft on any planet besides Earth on 19 April 2021, taking off vertically, hovering and landing on Mars. On 14 May 2021, CNSA's Tianwen-1 lander and Zhurong rover successfully landed on Mars. Zhurong rover was successfully deployed on 22 May 2021, which makes China the second country to successfully deploy a rover on Mars, after the United States.There are investigations assessing the past habitability of Mars, as well as the possibility of extant life. Astrobiology missions are planned, such as the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover. Liquid water on the surface of Mars cannot exist due to low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% of the atmospheric pressure on Earth, except at the lowest elevations for short periods. The two polar ice caps appear to be made largely of water. The volume of water ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted, would be sufficient to cover the planetary surface to a depth of 11 metres (36 ft). In November 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior.Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye, as can its reddish coloring. Its apparent magnitude reaches −2.94, which is surpassed only by Venus, the Moon and the Sun. Optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometres (190 mi) across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earth's atmosphere.

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  1. P

    When does Phobos collide with Mars?

    I tried to calculate it, but I think I'm going wrong way. I found m^2/s^2 in the definite integral... (170539114.487m^2/s^2) I don't know what it means!!
  2. berkeman

    What's the Next Step for NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter After Mission Ends on Mars?

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/world/nasa-mars-ingenuity-helicopter-mission-ends-scn/index.html
  3. DaveE

    Excellent Mars Perseverance video

    https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/27873/perseverance-rover-zooms-in-on-ancient-mars-river/ Look NASA, Congress, no astronauts required...
  4. Frabjous

    Detecting Martian Life: How Can We Find Evidence of Slow Life on the Red Planet?

    https://bigthink.com/hard-science/accidentally-killed-life-mars/ Interesting article about a type of life that might exist on Mars. It brings up questions on how do we test for the existence of life.
  5. D

    Calculating distance of Mars from the Sun based on two elongations

    I called the point E1 the point where Earth was at Feb,11 1990 and E2 at 30, Dec 1991, S for Sun and M for Mars and r for the Mars-Sun distance. Since we got a whole sidereal period between both alongation, I assumed Mars was on the same point in space (wrt Sun). I think I got the triangles...
  6. C

    Finding the velocity of a rock thrown vertically on Mars

    For this problem, The answer is ##6.28 m/s##, however, I got ##-314 m/s## and I am not sure what I have done wrong. My working is, ##H'(t) = \lim_{t \rightarrow 1} \frac{H(t) - H(1)}{t - 1}## ##H'(t) = \lim_{t \rightarrow 1} \frac{-1.86t^2 + 10t -8.14}{t - 1}## ##H'(t) = \lim_{t \rightarrow 1}...
  7. M

    Initial speed of an object launched from Mars

    U1 = -GMm/r K1 = (1/2)mvi^2 U2 = as r approaches infinity, U2 approaches zero K2 = (1/2)mvf^2 (1/2)mvi^2 - GMm/r = (1/2)mvf^2 + 0 vi = √(vf^2 + (2GMm)/r) = √(250,000 + 2(6.7 E-11)(6 E23)/3400) = 153776.815 But that is not the correct answer, can anybody see my mistake/misunderstanding?
  8. D

    Can comets create a microclimate crater on Mars 30km deep with 0.7bars?

    TL;DR Summary: Can comets either one or many create simultaneously overlapping impact craters for higher air pressures to breed algae and plant life as a micro climate? Is there a depth limit to crater creation on a planet? Let’s say Mars for a depth of 30km can it be done? Assuming the...
  9. osaplabs_sja

    A Can any thin materials protect a Mars spacecraft from gamma rays?

    Astronauts heading towards Mars (and hopefully return) will need protection against the harmful effects of gamma rays in space for this long trip. Apparently, much shorter trips have not caused enough bodily harm to be of much concern. However, a 6-month or longer trip might be a real problem. I...
  10. D

    B Could Nuclear Powered Bulldozers Create a Habitable Cavity for a Mars Colony?

    Digging 8km under the lowest point on Mars will get us Mount Everest conditions for air pressure. I was thinking of two ways of doing said title: Nuclear powered bulldozers working around the clock to clear away dirt on a low point on Mars such as...
  11. collinsmark

    Stargazing Join the occult (Dec. 7th/8th, Moon will occult Mars.)

    The Moon will occult Mars in less than a week for a good chunk of the northern hemisphere. That's the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 7th, for all of Canada and much of the United States. That's the wee morning hours of Thursday, Dec. 8th, for much of Europe...
  12. T

    Should we hit Mars with The Behemoth Comet?

    I want to know why no one thinks we should hit Mars with The behemoth comet, C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) after watching this fun video It is for the very highly educated, I know, that's what I am. Basically,, how much of a propellant push could nuking the behemoth comet result...
  13. T

    B Mars Probe gets Windows 98 Update, after 19 years

    https://www.techradar.com/news/mars-probe-running-windows-98-receives-software-update-after-two-decades
  14. Isopod

    B Could anything heat back up the core of Mars?

    My understanding of why Mars lost its atmosphere was because it cooled down too much internally and that when this happened, the planet lost its magnetic field that helped protect it from solar winds (which then ended up stripping away the planets atmosphere). Is there anything that people could...
  15. T

    NASA Could Mars have supported life? NASA challenge wants your help

    Deadline April 18, 2022 Competition Eligibility at: https://www.drivendata.org/competitions/93/nasa-mars-spectrometry/rules/ HeroX Challenge page: https://www.herox.com/MarsSpectrometry Brief article: https://www.space.com/nasa-mars-habitable-herox-competition Good Luck, and have Fun! Tom
  16. A

    Astronauts landing on the planet Mars

    Summary:: Astronauts landing on Mars When will the Crewed space mission for Mars exploration event taking place in future? Do you feel that in case life exists for survival on Mars planet, the future generations may actually visit and stay there for many years? Do you feel there will be a...
  17. Margarita0076

    Engineering Assembly Programming (MIPS): Convert BCD to Decimal

    I have this code which convert decimal number to binary number, but I do not understand how representation 8762 like 1000 0111 0110 0010. 8 7 6 2 1000 0111 0110 0010 .data strmsg: .asciiz "please Enter a decimal number: " .text #main method .globl main #main function main...
  18. A

    Gravitational potential energy traveling from earth to mars

    My attempt: Let ##M_e## be the mass of the Earth and ##M_m## be the mass of the person. Let ##D_{EM}## be the distance from Earth to Mars and let ##R_e## be the radius of the earth. Defining these constants (leaving off units for brevity): Masses in Kilograms (G is not a mass but I'll leave...
  19. T

    Mars - Igneous Rock, Exposed to Water, and with Organic Material

    A good candidate for the sample retrieval mission. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-perseverance-mars-rover-makes-surprising-discoveries
  20. D

    Stargazing Better than Mars Colonization in many aspects.

    Venus is not at the top of the priority list when it comes to the colonizing of space. Mars mostly takes the top spot but when checked deeply, it is very comparable to Mars Colonization and in some aspects it is even better than Mars Colonization. [Spammy link redacted by the Mentors]
  21. Astronuc

    NASA’s InSight Mission Reveals Internal Structure of Mars

    https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-insight-mission-reveals-the-detailed-internal-structure-of-mars/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/nasa-insight- spacecraft -reveals-first-peek-inside-mars-center https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-insight-reveals-the-deep-interior-of-mars...
  22. G

    Build Domed Cities on Mars - Air, Oxygen & Nitrogen Solutions

    If we want to build domed cities on Mars ( which i think a much cheaper option than O Neill cylinders) we need lots of local material. As far as i know oxygen and water arent scarce much of theese materials didnt escape but became peroxides and ice in the regolith. However are there enough...
  23. G

    Gathering Ice on Mars for Paraterraforming

    Paraterraforming requires lots of water and CO2, much of them freezen in the polar caps. What could be the plausible ways to collect them? In low gravity and thin air, could ship sized land vehicles or maybe entire cities move? Or should they build lots of villages powered by a central nuclear...
  24. jim mcnamara

    Mars had a Great Oxygenation Event, just like Earth did.

    Mars underwent a biologically induced change (assumption -- via photosynthesis) to the atmosphere billions of years ago. Rock strata were identified that are evidence of an earlier atmosphere, that is different from what came later. The more recent atmosphere oxidized iron in most of the...
  25. BillTre

    Missing Water on Mars: Hydrated Crust Minerals May Explain

    The solar wind driven removal of water from Mars can only explain a portion of the water thought to have once existed there. This process, indicated by the D/H ratio of normal hydrogen to its heavier form (deuterium) of Martian hydrogen, can only a count for the lower estimates of Martian...
  26. neilparker62

    Iconic first in flight (Ingenuity helicopter on Mars)

    Cleared for take-off on Runway 4 !
  27. N

    B Mars Landing, How instantaneous communication was possible

    If someone understood it, then kindly explain..?
  28. K

    Questions on operating a nuclear power plant on the Moon or Mars

    Heat cannot be removed by liquid-to-gas heat exchangers since there is no substantial atmospheres on the Moon or on Mars. It cannot be dissipated by venting steam since there is a critical water shortage. It cannot be dissipated by rocks or soil since both are essentially thermal insulators. It...
  29. Buzz Bloom

    Mystery of Mars' Dunes: A Puzzling Sight?

    https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210106.html It sure looks like some strange life form to me.
  30. S

    I Why is Mars not considered a "full-fledged" planet?

    https://www.space.com/ancient-earth-had-thick-toxic-atmosphere-like-venus
  31. S

    How tyrannical is the rocket equation for a human RT to Mars?

    I was reading this: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/elon-musk-highly-confident-spacex-will-land-humans-on-mars-by-2026.html It just seems that the Delta-V requirements - especially with a spacecraft that is stocked with supplies for a few years or for the Hohmann transfer helio-orbits - will...
  32. C

    I What are the names of these 2 craters on Mars....

    I am looking for the names of 2 craters on Mars. They are of interest to me because they are very deep & may have enough air pressure to support liquid water. If you have an internet link for looking up names that will do, but the links I websearched don't show the 2 craters below. The...
  33. Jarvis323

    B Is there a forum where people can share and discuss features on Mars?

    There are hundreds of thousands of images of Mars. In my spare time, I've browsed through many, and have kept track of the most interesting ones (to my eyes). So of course, I would be interested to discuss the features I found interesting with people that are more qualified to analyze them. I...
  34. Electrical

    How scientists calculated the weight of Mars

    How scientists calculated the weight of Mars to be 6.39 × 10^23 kg?
  35. T

    Orbit calculations in the solar system (journey to Mars)

    I cannot understand the solution at https://www.aapt.org/physicsteam/2015/upload/E3-2-5-solutions.pdf, because the solution is terse and skip steps (at least i think so). I figured out that the name of this transfer is "Hohmann-Transfer Orbit". A detailed walkthrough would be appreciated. If I...
  36. G

    B Mars Terraforming: NASA & Beyond - Plans & Prospects

    What are NASA's or any other space agency's current plans at terraforming Mars? I know we have a sequence of rover missions lined up, but are they aimed at anywhere? Before heading to college, I came to the conclusion that Mars ultimately lacked provenance because it had oddly shaped moons...
  37. J

    I Does gravity affect aging on different planets?

    Hello, I thought that it was easy to calculate the difference of aging on different planets, just by knowing the difference of gravity between them. But it is not so easy... I will also consider that the difference of gravity will not reduce our age because of other reasons (on muscles, on...
  38. thommy

    Mars: estimations about its colonization - liquid water issue

    ''Elon Musk says he plans to send 1 million people to Mars by 2050 by launching 3 Starship rockets every day and creating 'a lot of jobs' on the red planet'' It's been a while since Elon made the above statement, however isn't he being extremely optimistic about everything, really? What are...
  39. A

    I Are stable orbits possible between Mars and Jupiter?

    Just quick question: Could you put space stations (or even other small planets) at any aribitrary orbit or any radius in between Jupiter and Mars? Or, if something attempted to do so, would the orbit be unstable, and the object drift to either Mars or Jupiter? I was reading about Lagrange...
  40. MUZE

    Airship on Earth but a reentry glider on Mars

    Could a hybrid airship like spacecraft ever so slowly shed speed using Mars' atmosphere while remaining low orbit while buoyant enough to serve as a glider?
  41. BillTre

    What New Discoveries Await in NASA's Detailed Geological Map of Mars?

    NASA and the US Geological Survey have produced a new geological map of Mars. Better than before. Very detailed and interesting (to me anyway). Lots of download options. Here is one of my favorite Martian regions:
  42. L

    Mars Rover Upthrust and Acceleration calculations help 🚀

    1. ρmars atmosphere = 0.02 kgm^-3 volume of a sphere = 4 / 3 𝜋 𝑟^3 gmars = 3.8 ms^-2 So: Volume of a hemisphere=2/3 𝜋 𝑟^3 r=7.75 m Archimedes' principle states that the upthrust on an object is equal to the weight of fluid that the body displaces To find the upthrust produced...
  43. Miles Behind

    Simple atmospheric question re: Mars

    Assuming that both the Earth and Mars's atmospheric pressure follows an exponential curve, how many kilometers deep would the average bore-hole on Mars need to be in order to arrive at a depth where the atmospheric pressure was 0.35 bar or approximately 5 psi? What about 0.7 bar?
  44. T

    B Conjunction Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Moon - March 18 + or -

    Yup, they all appear together pre-dawn on March 18 to the SE. The planets hang out together for a week or so, while the Moon moves on. https://www.news4jax.com/weather/2020/03/16/you-are-missing-planet-palooza-if-you-dont-look-up-the-next-few-days/
  45. P

    Comp Sci Mars Rover Project code w/ Arduino

    Mentor note: I have removed author information and have enclosed the code below in code tags. First library: MarsRover_lineFinder2.ino #include <ZumoShield.h> #include "MRlinelib.h" #include <QTRSensors.h> #include <Pushbutton.h> #include <ZumoReflectanceSensorArray.h> #include <ZumoMotors.h>...
  46. E

    Traveling to Mars with plasma rockets

    Plasma-powered rockets could reduce the travel time to Mars by roughly half. https://theconversation.com/traveling-to-mars-with-immortal-plasma-rockets-58705
  47. DaveC426913

    Gas filter mask on Mars - sci fi

    In the early parts of the books, Mars' ambient atmo pressure (and temperature) was increased, including not just CO2, but oxygen as well. It rose to the point where they only needed masks that let through oxygen but not CO2. In my amateur view, I would expect that this would not work very...
  48. Bob Walance

    I believe .... (JFK - Mars version)

    that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a woman on Mars and returning her safely to the Earth.
  49. jim mcnamara

    Mars quakes lead to discovery of active fault zone

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/12/first-active-fault-system-found-mars2/ One insight on this is seismometers on Mars can provide data driven inferences about Mars deep crust structure with reliably located fault zones. Based on paper presented at AGU FallMeeting 2019 ...
  50. vicvalis

    I Travel from Mars to Earth question......

    First, i think this is the correct place to ask this question. So the story is that I'm working on a piece of fiction that I want to be as accurate as possible. One part of it involves an object that travels from Mars to earth. This would have been between February 22, 1901 (beginning of...
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