How mars compares with earth

1. How mars compares with earth Elly McAleavey

2. Volume and gravity • Mars is just over half of the size of the earth and twice the size of the moon. • it’s gravity is only 38% of ours, (3.711ms¯²)

3. Surface • Because of all of the canyons and mountains on the face of mars the two planets have very similar surface area • Mars’ volcano Olympus is three time the height of mount Everest and is the biggest in our solar system, a volcano that size wouldn’t be able to exist on earth because it would collapse under it’s own weight. • the surface of mars is dusty and dry compared to earth which surface is 70% water. • Mars and earth are the only planets in the solar system to have polar caps.

4. seasons • Both mars and earth are tilted on an axis and so go through different seasons as they travel round the sun • The polar caps on mars are made from carbon dioxide and like the ones on earth they decrease in size as each of them goes through its summer phase. • Mars’ equator can reach temperatures of up to 20°C which is as hot as it can get in the Antarctic. At it’s coldest the planet can reach temperatures as low as -153°C which is twice as cold as it can get in the Antarctic.

5. atmosphere • Earth’s atmosphere is 100 times thicker than mars’ • The Earths atmosphere mainly consists of nitrogen and oxygen while mars has an atmosphere of almost completely carbon dioxide. • Mars has been known to have storms on the surface very similar to the ones we have on earth (hurricanes, tornadoes)

6. Layers • It is believed that mars originally had similar layers to the ones inside the earth, but because of mars’ large surface area and small volume the planet cooled much faster and now it’s centre is almost solid. This means that we know that mars’ surface is permanent and is not constantly changing like the earths surface. Because the mantle has stopped moving. • Because of this mars has lost it’s magnetic field • The magnetic field protects the planet from most of the harmful radiation produced by the sun, when the magnetic field died the surface was burnt and most of it’s atmosphere was lost to space. • The lack of a magnetic field is the reason why mars’ is incapable of supporting intelligent life.

7. life • If mars’ centre had not cooled then there would be a possibility of civilization evolving on the planets surface. • The core cooled too early for life to make the jump into more complicated forms, it took over 3 billion years for the algae on earth to evolve into more complicated plants. And longer for animals to even start evolving. • it is believed though that bacteria may be alive on mars, due to the fact that there are reactions happening on the planets surface that could only be caused by volcanic reactions or bacteria and we know for a fact that all of mars’ volcanoes are dead.

8. Missions to mars • There are three kinds of missions that have been sent to mars, flyby, orbiters and landers • There have been 39 missions between 1960 an now and only 15 of them were a complete success. • The first mission was a flyby released by Russia named ‘korable 4’ which didn’t make it out of the earths atmosphere, it took 4 years and 7 attempts before the first successful mission named ‘marina 4’ which was sent from NASA and took 21 pictures of the planets surface. • Missions to mars have been attempted by Russia(USSR, 18 missions), USA(NASA, 19 missions), Japan(JAXA, 1 mission) and Europe(ESA, 1 mission) • the latest mission was released from NASA in 2007 named ‘the Phoenix Mars Lander’ which managed to return with 25GB worth of video footage taken from the planets surface. • NASA is currently planning to send the first manned mission to mars and have recently proven in an experiment that we would be able to live in the conditions for the duration of the trip (approximately 6 months)