Since the first expeditions successfully landed on the Red Planet at the end of the 20th century, we have gradually been able to unravel many of the mysteries of Mars. Thanks to technological progress, we are learning more and more about this fascinating planet.

Here are the most interesting facts about the red planet that are sure to teach you something new.

Mars has two very different hemispheres

One of the most interesting characteristics of Mars is the strong differences between the surfaces of the northern and southern hemispheres.

The northern hemisphere consists of low-lying plains that make the planet's topography appear young, while the southern hemisphere is riddled with craters, canyons, and appears rough and ancient.

In addition, the surface in the southern part is thicker than in the north. These differences still cause a lot of controversy among experts, and no one can explain the reason for such a difference in relief.

Snow on Mars will evaporate before it reaches the surface

If a person could stand on the equator of Mars, he would feel that the lower part of his body was in a hot climate and the upper part in a cold climate. While the feet are warm at a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, the head is cool, because at this altitude the temperature is 0 degrees. No wonder snow doesn't stand a chance.

Mars appears reddish due to rusty dust in the atmosphere

The surface of Mars contains a lot of iron. These minerals oxidize or rust, forming dust that enters the atmosphere, giving the planet a reddish hue not only up close but also from afar.

Mars is a terrestrial planet

Just like Earth, Venus and Mercury are the inner planets of the solar system.

Mars has a rocky surface and an iron core. Unlike the outer planets such as Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn, which are made of gases, the terrestrial planets have solid surfaces. They all have a similar structure - core, mantle and crust. However, the thickness of each layer varies from planet to planet.

The planet is dotted with deep craters

There are several large craters on the surface of the red planet, the largest of which is North Polar, which occupies about 40% of the surface of the entire planet. Scientists believe that the crater could have been formed as a result of a collision with a cosmic body the size of Pluto. This could have happened at an early stage in the formation of the Solar System.

The surface of Mars has very low pressure

If you decide to walk on Mars without a spacesuit, be prepared for the consequences. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is one hundred times lower than on Earth! This pressure causes almost any liquid consisting of at least half water to intensively boil and evaporate. The same fate awaits the blood of a person who enters the atmosphere of Mars without a spacesuit.

There is water on Mars

Exploration missions to Mars focus on finding evidence of life on the red planet. Much of the search is aimed at tracking the presence of liquid water, which makes life possible on Earth. Today it is known that there is water on Mars, although not quite in the form that is familiar to us. The Phoenix spacecraft has discovered a layer of ice hidden under a thin layer of soil in the polar region of Mars.

Mars may have had rivers and oceans in the past

Scientists believe that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars a long time ago, and traces of it remained on the surface and in the soil.

In 2013, scientists reported that the Curiosity rover had done soil analysis that provided actual evidence of the presence of water on Mars in the past.

This important discovery supports the hypothesis that Mars was habitable in the past.

Valles Marineris is the longest and deepest canyon system in the Solar System.

This canyon system can easily put the Grand Canyon to shame. The length of the Marinera Canyon is 4 thousand kilometers, and the depth is four times greater than that of the Grand Canyon.

Mars has a very thin atmosphere

You won't be able to breathe Martian air because carbon dioxide makes up 95.3 percent of the entire Martian atmosphere, while oxygen makes up just 0.13 percent.

It never rains on Mars

The surface of Mars is either very hot or very cold, so liquid water cannot exist there. It turns into either ice or steam.

But it snows on Mars

True, it is not quite similar to our earthly one. This is another fun and surprising fact about Mars - the snowflakes there are made of carbon dioxide, not water. Snowflakes are so tiny that we would perceive them as fog.

Giant sandstorms are raging on Mars

One sandstorm can cover the entire planet in dust and last for months.

Want to weigh less? Let's go to Mars!

On the surface of Mars, you can jump three times higher than on Earth, unless you are wearing a heavy spacesuit, of course. The surface gravity of Mars is about 37% less than that of Earth.

No one knows for sure who discovered Mars

The discovery of Mars cannot be accurately attributed to one person or culture.

There are suggestions that the ancient Egyptians discovered it in 1570 BC. e. However, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus is also often called the discoverer of Mars, since it was he who first observed it through a telescope.

There are also four seasons on Mars

Both Mars and Earth are tilted on their axis. Mars's axial tilt is almost exactly the same as Earth's, so Mars also has winter, spring, summer and autumn, although each of the red planet's seasons lasts twice as long.

A year on Mars is almost twice as long as on Earth

A solar day on the red planet lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds, almost the same as on ours. A year on Mars, however, lasts almost twice as long - 687 days.

Mars has two moons

Mars has two satellites - Phobos and Deimos. Like our Moon, they are tidally locked and show only one side to Mars. These moons are very small in size and may be asteroids.

The tallest volcano on Mars is three times taller than Everest

The tallest volcano on Mars, named Olympus Mons, or Olympus Mons, is the tallest mountain in the entire solar system. It rises 25 kilometers above the surrounding plains. The foot of the volcano could occupy the entire state of Arizona.

There are pieces of Mars on Earth

Despite the fact that no rover has ever returned from an expedition to the red planet, there are still pieces of Mars on Earth. How? Several meteorites discovered in Antarctica broke off from Mars because the composition of the rocks is consistent with the Martian soil and atmosphere.

Missions to Mars cost a lot of money

This fact in itself will not surprise anyone. Of course, sending an expensive spacecraft to a neighboring planet cannot be a cheap pleasure. However, look at the numbers. At 1970s price levels, the Viking mission cost the United States about a billion dollars.

The budget for the Curiosity rover, one of the last Martian scientific laboratories, is an almost unaffordable two and a half billion dollars. This is the most expensive space mission to date.

The flight to Mars and back will take more than a year

If you are planning to join an expedition to Mars, prepare for a long flight. It will take you approximately eight months to reach the surface of the red planet, and another eight to return home to Earth. This is not a transatlantic flight or a train ride along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Traveling to Mars (56 million kilometers) at the speed of a car or train would take almost a lifetime - 66 years.

The existence of extraterrestrial life has worried humanity since ancient times. The solar system became the first place where scientific minds hoped to find living organisms. With the development of science, it was possible to find out that the most probable is life on Mars. Legends of antiquity, supported by scientific facts and photographs of Mars, indicate that the existence of life beyond the Earth is possible.

The mystery of the red planet

Today, the planet Mars is being actively explored. The news relates to strange findings, unexplained photographs. A trip to Mars is planned soon, which will either finally debunk the myth of extraterrestrial life or confirm its existence in the solar system. The significant distance to Mars makes the expedition long and difficult; you can read about preparations for it on our website. The available videos of Mars are food for thought about the structure of the World.

News about Mars- these are not only NASA reports, but also mysterious, unexplainable mysteries. The most famous photographs of Mars contain an incredible picture: the geolandscape in one direction clearly resembles a human face, nearby there are pyramids similar in structure to the pyramids in Egypt. The monolith on Phobos, the Hangar, the mysterious finds of the Mars rover, the amazing forms of the landscape are part of the incompletely researched facts that cause heated debate.

Unidentified researchers claim that there was life on Mars. Assumptions about the connection between the culture and technology of Ancient Egypt and the race that previously inhabited Mars have impressive evidence. The current interest of official astronomy in Mars presents new mysteries, the answers to which you will find in this section.

Thanks to NASA's Curiosity rover, which captured a sweeping panorama of the supposedly dead wastelands of Mars, armchair explorers have discovered a huge "wall" built on Mars.

Mars - buildings of a lost civilization

The Curiosity rover “clicked” an image of an interesting object, already called by ufologists an ancient wall, of course built by the hands of ancient Martians.

Could the entertaining image be yet another piece of evidence that we are seeing the remains of an alien civilization on Mars? In fact, have you ever thought seriously about the possibility of existence in the distant past - even before the appearance of life on Earth - that alien civilizations had already flourished in our space region?

We have no doubt: tens of millions of years ago, Mars was extremely similar to the present Earth, its oceans and thick atmosphere gave life strong chances. Many are sure that the alien civilization of the fourth planet from the Sun flourished, built and improved, massive monuments, structures, temples were erected, cities rose. Life there moved in exactly the same way as it had throughout the long history of the Earth.

Over the past few years, the number of images showing man-made structures on the surface of Mars has quadrupled! By the way, photographs of the Martian surface have practically ceased to be retouched, as was the case with lunar exploration.

In fact, almost every image of a robotic exploration team on Mars shows at least one mysterious "object" that appears to have been artificially carved into the rocks or constructed. Of course, most mysterious objects are passed off as the result of pareidolia, but other images cannot be dismissed so easily.

Many scientists have now put aside their skepticism about Mars, and believe that intelligent life had an excellent chance of developing on the planet's surface in the distant past. In one of his scientific papers, : Analysis of new images shows significant evidence of eroded archaeological sites. Taken together, these data require that the hypothesis of Mars as a site must be carefully considered.

— Dr. Brandenburg, bold in his statements, considers the past of Mars to be extremely similar to Earth, with a climate suitable for animals and plants. Dr. Brandenbrug is probably one of the few scientists who dared to say out loud: Mars was inhabited by intelligent beings, and we have evidence of their existence.

What skeptics call ludicrous claims add up to the sum of the evidence, pointing to a bigger picture: Mars was inhabited in the past, and the vast array of heavily eroded structures on Mars support the hypothesis.

Martine Grainey is one of those people who, after analyzing Martian images, are convinced of the existence of an extinct civilization on Mars. According to an image posted on her Facebook group, Martine is illustrating what appears to be a large-scale man-made wall. The wall is in one of the images on the starboard side of the Curiosity rover (link to NASA archive).

In the past, researchers have repeatedly found "strange" things on Mars: . Could the latest image, like all the previous ones, prove that we are looking at the long-vanished civilization of Mars?
Or are we just imagining this in our imagination thanks to the pareidolia effect? What if humanity is a colony of a lost Martian civilization? Let us know what you think…

Mars has always aroused curiosity among scientists and ordinary people, so many studies and discoveries are associated with it. The scientists' report that there was water on Mars became a real sensation. Currently, two rovers and three orbiters are exploring Mars, and two more will soon join them. Our review contains the most interesting ideas that arise during these scientific researches.

10. The passage of a comet disrupted the magnetosphere of Mars

In September 2014, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft entered Mars orbit. Just a few weeks later, the probe witnessed a rare occurrence of a comet passing very close to the Red Planet. Comet C/2013 A1, also known as "Siding Spring", was discovered in 2013.

Scientists initially thought the comet would crash into Mars, but the two objects passed within 140,000 km of each other. Since Mars has a rather weak magnetosphere, the planet was literally flooded with a layer of ions from the comet's powerful magnetic field. NASA compared this effect to a powerful but short-lived solar storm. As a result, for some time the magnetic field of Mars plunged into complete chaos.

In 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft was launched to study the atmosphere of Mars. Based on observations made by the probe and computer modeling, it appears that the planet has a rather fashionable mohawk. Mars' unusual hairstyle is actually made up of electrically charged particles plucked from the planet's upper atmosphere by the solar wind. The electric field created by the solar wind, as well as other significant events on the Sun such as coronal mass ejections and solar flares, rip ions out of the planet's polar regions, creating a cloud of charged particles that resembles a mohawk.

8. There is impact glass on Mars that could save life.

Impactite is a type of rock created as a result of a meteorite impact, i.e., shock-explosive (impact) action. It is actually a mixture of various rocks, minerals, glass and crystals formed due to enormous pressure and temperature. Known sources of impactite on Earth are the Alamo fireball crater in Nevada and the Darwin crater in Tasmania. Last year, NASA found new sources of this substance on Mars.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered deposits of impact glass preserved in several craters on the Red Planet. In 2014, scientist Peter Schultz showed that similar glass found in Argentina preserved plant matter and organic molecules, so it is possible that impact glass on Mars may also contain traces of ancient life.

If humans ever settle Mars, they will have to develop methods of feeding colonists on the Red Planet. According to scientists from Wageningen University, there are now four vegetable and grain crops that can be grown in Martian soil and that are suitable for consumption afterwards.

These four crops are tomatoes, radishes, rye and peas. Dutch scientists grew them in soil whose composition was as close as possible to that of Mars, based on NASA data. Although this soil contains high levels of heavy metals such as cadmium and copper, food grown in it did not absorb these metals in sufficient quantities to pose a risk to humans.

Rovers and probes have been studying the Martian dunes for quite some time, but recent images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have scientists somewhat puzzled. In February 2016, the spacecraft transmitted images of complex dunes that closely resembled the dots and dashes used in Morse code. Scientists believe that most likely an old meteorite crater limited the amount of sand from which the dunes were formed, which led to their unusual shape.

The dash dunes were supposedly formed by winds that blew at right angles from two directions, which created their linear shape. But scientists cannot yet explain how the “point” dunes were formed.

5. Martian mineral mystery

The region of Mars explored by the Curiosity rover in 2015 raised many questions for NASA scientists. This area, known as "Marayas", is a geologically unusual area where a layer of sandstone sits on a "cushion" of mudstone. Marayas has exceptionally high concentrations of silica - up to 90 percent in some rocks. Silicon dioxide is a chemical compound found in rocks and minerals on Earth, most notably quartz.

According to Curiosity project scientist Albert Yen, standard processes for increasing silica concentrations involve either dissolving other ingredients or introducing silica from another source. In any case, you need water. The scientists were even more surprised when they took rock samples. For the first time on Mars, they stumbled upon a mineral called tridymite. Although tridymite is incredibly rare on Earth, huge amounts of it ended up in Marayas and no one has any idea where it came from.

4. White planet

There was a time when the famous Red Planet was actually more white than red. According to astronomers at the Southern Research Institute in Boulder, this is because Mars relatively recently experienced an ice age much more extreme than those experienced on Earth. The team came to this conclusion by observing layers of ice at the north pole of Mars. Using ground penetrating radar, astronomers saw a cross-section in the ice structure 2 km below Mars's icy crust, purportedly evidence that the planet experienced an intense ice age 370,000 years ago, with another expected 150,000 years ago.

3. Martian underground volcanoes

Newly discovered deposits of tridymite indicate violent volcanic activity on Mars in the past. New data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter also suggests that Mars once had volcanoes that erupted beneath the ice. The probe studied a region of the Red Planet known as the "Sisyphi Montes."

It has a large number of flat-topped mountains, which are similar in shape to the Earth's volcanoes that erupted under the ice. When an eruption like this occurs, it is usually powerful enough to break through the ice layer and shoot large amounts of ash into the air. This also leaves a clear trace of minerals and other compounds, similar to the one found at Sisyphi Montes.

2. Ancient Martian mega-tsunamis

Scientists are still arguing about whether there once was a northern ocean on the Red Planet. However, new research indicates that the ocean did exist and was racked with huge tsunamis that dwarf its terrestrial counterparts. Until now, evidence pointing to the existence of an ancient ocean was considered to be the remains of a coastline, but tsunamis up to 120 meters high, which hit the shore every three million years, simply erased the coastline.

Scientists are especially interested in studying craters near the coastline. After all, water must have accumulated in them over millions of years, which makes such craters ideal places to look for signs of ancient life.

1. Mars had more water than the Arctic Ocean

Although the location of Mars' ocean is still debated, scientists agree that the Red Planet used to have a lot of water. NASA suggests that Mars once had enough water to completely cover the planet's surface in one giant ocean 140 meters deep.

However, the water was likely concentrated in an ocean larger than Earth's Arctic Ocean, which covered approximately 19 percent of Mars' surface. It is also estimated that Mars lost 87 percent of its water, which evaporated into space.