martianrocker
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the seventh largest:
orbit: 227,940,000 km (1.52 AU) from Sun
diameter: 6,794 km
mass: 6.4219e23 kg
Mars (Greek: Ares) is the god of War. The planet probably got this name due to its red color; Mars is sometimes referred to as the Red Planet. (An interesting side note: the Roman god Mars was a god of agriculture before becoming associated with the Greek Ares; those in favor of colonizing and terraforming Mars may prefer this symbolism.) The name of the month March derives from Mars.
Mars has been known since prehistoric times. Of course, it has been extensively studied with ground-based observatories. But even very large telescopes find Mars a difficult target, it's just too small. It is still a favorite of science fiction writers as the most favorable place in the Solar System (other than Earth!) for human habitation. But the famous "canals" "seen" by Lowell and others were, unfortunately, just as imaginary as Barsoomian princesses.
The first spacecraft to visit Mars was Mariner 4 in 1965. Several others followed including Mars 2, the first spacecraft to land on Mars and the two Viking landers in 1976. Ending a long 20 year hiatus, Mars Pathfinder landed successfully on Mars on 1997 July 4. In 2004 the Mars Expedition Rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity" landed on Mars sending back geologic data and many pictures; they are still operating after more than a year on Mars. Three Mars orbiters (Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Express) are also currently in operation.
Mars' orbit is significantly elliptical. One result of this is a temperature variation of about 30 C at the subsolar point between aphelion and perihelion. This has a major influence on Mars' climate. While the average temperature on Mars is about 218 K (-55 C, -67 F), Martian surface temperatures range widely from as little as 140 K (-133 C, -207 F) at the winter pole to almost 300 K (27 C, 80 F) on the day side during summer.
Though Mars is much smaller than Earth, its surface area is about the same as the land surface area of Earth.
Olympus Mons
Mars has some of the most highly varied and interesting terrain of any of the terrestrial planets, some of it quite spectacular:
Olympus Mons: the largest mountain in the Solar System rising 24 km (78,000 ft.) above the surrounding plain. Its base is more than 500 km in diameter and is rimmed by a cliff 6 km (20,000 ft) high.
Tharsis: a huge bulge on the Martian surface that is about 4000 km across and 10 km high.
Valles Marineris: a system of canyons 4000 km long and from 2 to 7 km deep (top of page);
Hellas Planitia: an impact crater in the southern hemisphere over 6 km deep and 2000 km in diameter.
Much of the Martian surface is very old and cratered, but there are also much younger rift valleys, ridges, hills and plains. (None of this is visible in any detail with a telescope, even the Hubble Space Telescope; all this information comes from the spacecraft that we've sent to Mars.)
Southern Highlands
The southern hemisphere of Mars is predominantly ancient cratered highlands somewhat similar to the Moon. In contrast, most of the northern hemisphere consists of plains which are much younger, lower in elevation and have a much more complex history. An abrupt elevation change of several kilometers seems to occur at the boundary. The reasons for this global dichotomy and abrupt boundary are unknown (some speculate that they are due to a very large impact shortly after Mars' accretion). Mars Global Surveyor has produced a nice 3D map of Mars that clearly shows these features.
The interior of Mars is known only by inference from data about the surface and the bulk statistics of the planet. The most likely scenario is a dense core about 1700 km in radius, a molten rocky mantle somewhat denser than the Earth's and a thin crust. Data from Mars Global Surveyor indicates that Mars' crust is about 80 km thick in the southern hemisphere but only about 35 km thick in the north. Mars' relatively low density compared to the other terrestrial planets indicates that its core probably contains a relatively large fraction of sulfur in addition to iron (iron and iron sulfide).
Like Mercury and the Moon, Mars appears to lack active plate tectonics at present; there is no evidence of recent horizontal motion of the surface such as the folded mountains so common on Earth. With no lateral plate motion, hot-spots under the crust stay in a fixed position relative to the surface. This, along with the lower surface gravity, may account for the Tharis bulge and its enormous volcanoes. There is no evidence of current volcanic activity. However, data from Mars Global Surveyor indicates that Mars very likely did have tectonic activity sometime in the past.
Valley Network
There is very clear evidence of erosion in many places on Mars including large floods and small river systems. At some time in the past there was clearly some sort of fluid on the surface. Liquid water is the obvious fluid but other possibilities exist. There may have been large lakes or even oceans; the evidence for which was strenghtened by some very nice images of layered terrain taken by Mars Global Surveyor and the mineralology results from MER Opportunity. Most of these point to wet episodes that occurred only briefly and very long ago; the age of the erosion channels is estimated at about nearly 4 billion years. However, images from Mars Express released in early 2005 show what appears to be a frozen sea that was liquid very recently (maybe 5 million years ago). Confirmation of this interpretation would be a very big deal indeed! (Valles Marineris was NOT created by running water. It was formed by the stretching and cracking of the crust associated with the creation of the Tharsis bulge.)
Early in its history, Mars was much more like Earth. As with Earth almost all of its carbon dioxide was used up to form carbonate rocks. But lacking the Earth's plate tectonics, Mars is unable to recycle any of this carbon dioxide back into its atmosphere and so cannot sustain a significant greenhouse effect. The surface of Mars is therefore much colder than the Earth would be at that distance from the Sun.
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%). The average pressure on the surface of Mars is only about 7 millibars (less than 1% of Earth's), but it varies greatly with altitude from almost 9 millibars in the deepest basins to about 1 millibar at the top of Olympus Mons. But it is thick enough to support very strong winds and vast dust storms that on occasion engulf the entire planet for months. Mars' thin atmosphere produces a greenhouse effect but it is only enough to raise the surface temperature by 5 degrees (K); much less than what we see on Venus and Earth.Band/artist history
Martian Rocker Has Comcast Cable TV show Fridays in N/W Chicagoland Area and Casting New "It takes a Martian" in Burband Studios Now.
www.martianrocker.comHave you performed in front of an audience?Mars has two tiny satellites which orbit very close to the martian surface:
Distance Radius Mass
Satellite (000 km) (km) (kg) Discoverer Date
--------- -------- ------ ------- ---------- ----
Phobos 9 11 1.08e16 Hall 1877
Deimos 23 6 1.80e15 Hall 1877
Mars' Satellites
Your musical influences
All the Great OnesWhat equipment do you use?
ROLAND, FENDER, Gibson, Marlshall, JBLAnything else?
Planet Mars, Mars Exploration and Mars Missions
Mars Missions
Current and Future Mars Missions
This page is also available in a more structured format
Evidence for Recent Sources of Liquid Water on Mars:
Martian Gullies (MSSS)
space.com report on Water on Mars
APOD June 23, 2000 and June 26, 2000
Mars Water Project (LPL)
Life on Mars: Nasa announced evidence; in the Mars Meteorites found on Earth!
Mars Meteorite Compendium (JSC/Nasa)
Launch Sequence of all historic Mars missions (and scheduled launch dates for future missions), with links to spacecraft images and webpages
Mars Today: Current Appearance of and Weather on Mars
Find Mars in the sky now (current finder chart)
Mars Ephemeris by Jeff Beish, A.L.P.O. Mars Section
Mars Basic Data (under construction)
Mars Oppositions
Mars 2003 - record opposition
Mars 2005
Mars Physical Ephemeris for 2005 and 2006 (ALPO Mars Section)
Mars 2007
The 2007 Aphelic Apparition of Mars, by Jeffrey D. Beish and Donald C. Parker, Mars Section of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (A.L.P.O.)
Rik Hill's Observer's Mars page (Mars Section) at ALPO (LPL, University of Arizona)
Mars map with nomenclature (ALPO, Mars Watch)
The International MarsWatch 2007 - images
MarsWatch 2005 - MarsWatch 2003 - MarsWatch 2001 - MarsWatch 1999 - MarsWatch 1996-7 - MarsWatch 1994-5
MarsWatch Home by Jim Bell
Amateur images of Mars, including:
Antonio Cidadao's Mars Observations (also check various links in Antonio's homepage)
Jack Schmidling's Mars photos
Bobby Middleton's Mars images (within his planetary image gallery)
Hubble Space Telescope images of Mars
Chandra CXO X-ray image of Mars - Nasa MSFC Photo Release 02-284 (Nov 8, 2002)
The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery, by William Sheehan. Online book, University of Arizona Press. Mars Oppositions 1901-2035
Center for Mars Exploration (Nasa Ames; really cool stuff); Mars Landing Site list
Nasa Exploring Mars - infos on future Mars exploration
Ralph Aeschliman's new maps of Mars, made from USGS Viking and MOLA data
Live from Mars (ARC/Nasa)
Mars Mission Research Center (NCSU): Research for a Manned Mars Mission
Martian Chronicle at JPL
Case For Mars VI Conference 1996 Homepage
The Mars Society
Romance and Reality: Moon and Mars expedition and settlement plans
Dead Link! Mission: Mars: Engineering toward a crewed Mars mission, articles (Bill H. Clark II)
A Crewed Mission to Mars ... Scenario (NSSDC)
Stanford International Manned Mars Mission (text in various formats). Also look at Illustrations for this project and other Mars related artwork, from the SEDS Space Art archive
Mars Online Conference
Volcanism on Mars (Volcano World)
Terraforming Mars, informations by Christopher Burger
Mars face: A nice landform on Mars. Marsface homepage at Malin Space Systems
Percival Lowell's Original "Mars" book from 1895
Alfred R. Wallace' Is Mars Habitable? from 1907; a critical examination on Lowell's "Mars". From The Alfred Russel Wallace Page by Charles H. Smith
Mars in Science Fiction Bibliography
Shallow Sky's Mars FAQ and links - Mars Observer's FAQ
Mars page of The Nine Planets multimedia tour of Bill Arnett
JPL's Welcome to the Planets Mars page
Mars info from the U.S. Goelogical Survey
Exploring the Planets Mars page (NASM)
Stardate Solar System Guide's Mars page
ASU TES Solar System Tour Mars page; Planet MARS Internet Links
Mars homepage and Factsheet (NSSDC)
Photogallery of Mars (NSSDC)
Mars Atlas home page
Mars Exploration Program (JPL; includes mirror index)
Mars System Query page, Nasa's Planetary Photojournal
Mars edition of the ASP's "Universe in the Classroom" Newsletter for Teachers (No. 9)
Mars Millennium Project - a National Arts, Sciences, Technology Education Initiative
The Whole Mars Catalog (astrobiology.com)
West to Mars: Journey through the possibilities. An appealing peace of art by Ken Fair of Mars West Collaborative Project Organization.
Explore Mars page (LPI, JSC, Nasa)
JSC's Lunar and Planetary Institute offers the following slide sets (and image galleries) on Mars. These are powerful educational tools, and can also be purchased as 35mm slide sets at low prices from LPI (look at their online educational resources and price information).
The Red Planet, Mars Survey (including SNC meteorites); The Red Planet: A Survey of Mars - Second Edition (1997)
Winds, Aeolian landforms on Mars
Stones, Mars craters
Mars Volcanoes
Ancient Life on Mars ?
Mars News and Mars Link Directory from Universe Today
Mars Mission News (JPL; 1998)
Mars image collection (SEDS ftp server); HTML interface
Mars Missions
Current and Future Mars Missions
Launch Sequence of all historic Mars missions (and scheduled launch dates for future missions), with links to spacecraft images and webpages
ON MARS - Exploration of the Red Planet 1958-1978 - NASA SP-4212 Edward Clinton Ezell & Linda Neuman Ezell - The NASA History Series - ScientAdmin
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