Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System. In English, the planet is named for the Roman god of war, an association made because of its red color, which suggests blood. Liquid water on the surface of Mars cannot exist due to low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% of the atmospheric pressure on Earth.

About Mars in brief

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, being larger than only Mercury. In English, the planet is named for the Roman god of war, an association made because of its red color, which suggests blood. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, with surface features reminiscent of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Mars trojan. Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye, as can its reddish coloring. Liquid water on the surface of Mars cannot exist due to low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% of the atmospheric pressure on Earth, except at the lowest elevations for short periods. There are investigations assessing the past habitability of Mars, as well as the possibility of extant life. The Mars Express orbiter, the first European Space Agency spacecraft to visit Mars, arrived in orbit on 25 December 2003. In January 2004, the Mars Exploration Rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, both landed on Mars. Spirit operated until 22 March 2010 and Opportunity lasted until 10 June 2018. In November 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to thevolume of water in Lake Superior.

The name Antares is also the basis of the name of the month of March, where the old Anglo-Saxon god Tíwíw was identified with Roman Mars. A number of European languages use the word Marte or Marte for the planet, though it may be used alongside other words like’martian’ in the military sense of the word. The archaic Latin form Māvors is very very rarely seen in English, though the adjectives Mavial and Mavortian mean’martial’ in English. The planet is known as Arēs in Greek, with the inflectional stem  Ἄρξάs, and as Arean in Greek. From Arean, such as ‘Mars’ and ‘Antares’ come technical terms such as arean and the adjective Arean and  η- arean. Mars’ apparent magnitude reaches −2. 94, surpassed only by Venus, the Moon, and the Sun. Its apparent magnitude is typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometres across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earth’s atmosphere. On 24 September 2014, the Indian Space Research Organisation became the fourth space agency to visit the planet when its maiden interplanetary mission, theMars Orbiter Mission spacecraft, arrived. The first robotic rover to operate on Mars, Sojourner, was released on July 5, 1997. On 4 July 1997, Mars Pathfinder spacecraft landed on the planet and on 5 July released its rover, SoJourner.

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