Nicholas Zubrick Incredible Facts about Mars

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Top Five Incredible Facts About Mars

• By Nicholas Zubrick

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1 Scientists observed a Martian civilization
just last century
The astronomer William Herschel made some
important observations of Mars, including its
rotation period and the seasonal variation of its
ice caps. But, like many of his era, he also
worked under the assumption that the planet was
teeming with life.. He suggested that intelligent
Martians probably enjoyed a situation similar to
our own.
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2 Valles Marineris is the grandest canyon in the
Solar System
Valles Marineris cuts a deep scar across 20 of
the circumference of Mars, extending an
incredible 2,500 miles around the planet. It
begins in the maze-like valleys of the Noctis
Labyrinthus (labyrinth of the night) in the
west and abates in the smooth Chryse Planitia
(golden plain) to the northeast.
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3 The moons of Mars have different fates
Phobos is a mere 43 miles around and Deimos is
just 24 miles. Because of their irregular shapes,
theyre actually thought to be captured asteroids
caught in Marss gravitational pull. And because
of their diminutive size, they both have very
little gravity of their own. On Phobos, for
example, you could easily throw a baseball into
escape velocity, while on Deimos you could ride a
bike off a hill into space.
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4 The Red Planet used to be blue
While notions of organized life on the surface of
Mars have long since been quashed, we now know
the planet has water. And billions of years ago,
it almost certainly had rivers, lakes, and seas
just like the Earth. Digital visualizations give
us a glimpse of what this may have looked
likeeither from within the early Martian
atmosphere or from without, looking at the planet
from space.
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5 There may be life on Mars right now
Because Mars lost its atmosphere and the majority
of its water gradually, over a period of millions
or billions of years, its possibleeven
likelythat life evolved to survive the
increasingly inhospitable conditions.Back in
1975, the year before the first Viking lander
returned data and samples from the surface,
Martians were envisioned as ground-based and
fungal in appearance.
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