Here are a few less known facts about Mars:
- It can get pretty warm on the surface of Mars, up to 20°C (68°F) during the summer.
- The polar caps of Mars consist of carbondioxide (dry ice).
- Mars has the largest confirmed impact crater in the Solar System, with a size of 3,300 km (half the planet’s diameter). Utopia Planitia
Utopia Planitia is in the upper right.
- There are tornados on Mars (more precise: dust devils), and they can get very large, reaching heights of several kilometers. But because the atmosphere of Mars is very thin, you could stand inside such a tornado and would not be blown away (you could barely feel the wind).
- Mars has volcanoes, including the largest volcano in the Solar System Olympus Mons. But its slope is so shallow that you could not see to the bottom if you stood at its top, due to the curvature of the planet.
- Few people know that Olympus Mons is not only very high, but also almost as large as France.
- Mars once had a much warmer climate, with a magnetic field, a denser atmosphere and liquid water on the surface (possibly harbouring life). When it lost its magnetic field, solar wind stripped away the atmosphere, and without the atmosphere, liquid water could no longer exist on the surface.
- You could see the Earth and the Moon from the surface of Mars with your naked eye.
- Mars has clouds, and dunes (both of which are moving)
- And finally: Mars is the only known planet inhabited solely by robots.
