CONTENTS MEET MARS THE RED PLANET 4 HOW BIG IS MARS 6 INSIDE OF MARS 8 THE SURFACE OF THE PLANET 10 THE MOONS OF MARS 12 A LARGE ORBIT 14 MARS SPIN 16 ANCIENT OBSERVATION 18 THE MARINER MISSIONS 20 FIRST VISITS 22 ROVING AROUND 24 PHOENIX CURIOSITY AND MAVEN 26 INTO THE FUTURE 28 GLOSSARY 30 FOR MORE INFORMATION 31 INDEX 32
4 MEET MARS THE RED PLANET Mars is one of the planets that orbit or travel around the sun in the solar system It is the fourth planet from the sun It is also Earth’s outer neighbor Mars is close enough that we can see it from Earth without using a telescope Mars is called the red planet because its surface is red Sometimes it even looks like a red star in the night sky from Earth In this photograph of Mars the white areas are clouds surrounding volcanoes
5 The solar system is the sun and all of the planets dwarf planets moons asteroids comets and small icy bodies that orbit the sun VOCABULARY Mars is about 142 million miles 228 million kilometers away from the sun It has two small rocky moons called Phobos and Deimos For centuries people have wondered whether there is life on Mars So far scientists have found no obvious signs of life on the planet However they are still trying to find out if life forms may have ever existed on Mars Scientists are also studying whether there was ever water on Mars From Mars Earth and our moon look like stars This photo was taken from Mars in 2014
