Mars is a planet within the solar system and it is the fourth planet from the sun, and Mars or the red planet is the fourth planet in terms of distance from the sun in the solar system and it is the outer neighbor of the earth and is classified as a rocky planet, from the group of terrestrial planets (similar to the earth) and its name in Arabic is derived from the word “Amrukh” means the owner of the red spots, and it is said that the bull is Amrakh, meaning it has red spots. As for Mars (in Latin: Mars), it is the name of the god that the Romans took for war. As for the nickname of the red planet, it is caused by the reddish color of the planet or redness due to the high percentage of iron trioxide dust. on its surface and in its atmosphere.
The diameter of Mars is about 6,792 km (4,220 miles), which is equal to the radius of the Earth and the second smallest planet in the solar system after Mercury. Between the Earth’s orbit and the sun, the smooth Arctic basin covers nearly 40% of the northern hemisphere and may have a significant impact on the planet.
Mars has two moons, the first is called Deimos, which means horror in Greek, and the second is Phobos, which means Elho. They are small and irregular in shape, and they could be two asteroids that he captured, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Martian Trojan.
The upper surface temperature is 27 degrees Celsius and the lowest is 133 degrees Celsius, and the atmosphere of Mars is composed of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon, water vapor and other gases. Scientists believe that Mars contained water 3.8 billion years ago, which makes the hypothesis of the existence of life on it circulated at least theoretically, with mountains higher than their earthly counterparts and extended valleys, and it has the largest volcano in the solar system called Olympus Mons after Mount Olympus, as well. There is the Mariner Valley, which is one of the largest canyons in the solar system.
Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye, as well as its reddish coloration, its apparent strength reaches 2.94, which is exceeded only by Jupiter, Venus, as well as the Moon and the Sun. The many collisions between celestial bodies that the solar system witnessed at the beginning of its formation, which led to the swelling of most of the other planets, and this explains the small size of Mars compared to Earth or Venus. The two scientists reached this conclusion after a survey of the radioactive decay products in meteorites.
Mars currently hosts 8 spacecraft that are still operating, six of which are in orbit around the planet: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Maven, Mangalian, and Orbit Gas Tracker, and two on the planet’s surface, the Curiosity rover and Perseverance rover.
There are ongoing investigations into the potential for life on Mars, as well as the possibility of long life, as future astronomy missions are planned, including the rover (Mars 2020) and ExoMars.
Liquid water cannot exist on Mars due to the low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% of Earth’s, except at some altitudes for short periods.
The polar ice caps appear to contain a large amount of water. The volume of Antarctic water ice, if it melted, would be enough to cover the surface of the planet to a depth of 11 meters (36 feet) In November 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of ice underground in The Utopia Planetia region of Mars, the volume of water detected, was estimated to be equal to the volume of water in Lake Superior.
Characteristics of the planet: The area of Mars is slightly more than a quarter of the Earth’s area (28.4% of the Earth’s area), which is slightly less than the land area on Earth. (11% of the Earth’s mass) and the surface gravity compared to Earth is about 38%, and the atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is 0.75% of the atmospheric pressure on Earth. Colliding with the surface of Mars.
The red-orange appearance of the surface of Mars is caused by iron(III) oxide or rust, and other common surface colors of Mars include gold, brown, brown, and green, depending on the minerals present.
Martian air consists of 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, and a small part of oxygen and water. Determining its origin from Mars as a result of comparing its mineral composition and rock composition observed from the Vikings 1 and 2 where researchers infer the presence of microfossils in the meteorite, but the aforementioned hypothesis remains controversial without reaching a definite conclusion that there was life in the past on Mars.
Mars is a rocky planet and most of its surface is red, except for some spots of darker color due to its soil and rocks. The atmosphere of Mars is thin and consists mainly of carbon dioxide and small amounts of water vapor. The Martian atmosphere is colder than Earth, and the year on Mars is 687 Earth days.
Atmosphere: Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, probably due to many strikes from collisions with the planet, and thus the solar wind directly affects the Martian ionosphere, reducing the density of the atmosphere by stripping atoms from the outer layer, both the Mars Global Survey and Mars Discover Express ionized atmospheric particles flowing into space behind Mars, studied by MAVEN (Probe) Atmospheric pressures at the surface today range from 30 Pa (0.030 kPa) on Mount Olympus to more than 1,155 Pa (1,155 kPa) at Hellas Planetia, With an average surface pressure of 600 Pa (0.60 kPa) the highest density in the atmosphere on Mars is equal to that at 35 km (115,000 ft) above the Earth’s surface, the resulting average surface pressure is only 0.6% of Earth pressure (101.3 kPa). Pascal).
Climate: Of all the planets in the solar system, the seasons of Mars are the most similar to Earth, due to the similar tilt of the rotation axis of the two planets. For Earth, Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about 143 °C (225 °F) in the polar winter caps to levels as high as 35 °C (95 °F) in tropical summer.
The wide range in temperatures is due to the thin atmosphere that cannot store much of the sun’s heat, the low atmospheric pressure, and the low inertia of the Martian soil. The planet is 1.52 times farther from the sun than Earth, resulting in only 43% of the amount of sunlight.
If Mars had an Earth-like orbit, its seasons would be similar to Earth’s because its axial tilt is similar to Earth’s. The relatively large eccentricities of Mars’ orbit have a huge impact. Mars is near perihelion when it’s summer in the southern hemisphere and winter in the north, and near the horizon when it’s winter in Southern Hemisphere and Northern Summer As a result, the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere are more extreme and the seasons in the North are milder than they used to be, summer temperatures in the South can be up to 30 degrees warmer than equivalent summer temperatures in the North Celsius (54 degrees Fahrenheit).
Mars has dust storms that are the largest in the solar system, reaching speeds of more than 160 km/h (100 mph) These can vary from a storm over a small area, to giant storms that cover the entire planet, tending to occur when Mars is closer to the sun, and it has been shown that it increases the global temperature.
The planet’s orbit and rotation: Mars is 230 million km (143 million miles) from the sun, with an orbital period of 687 days (Earth) in red, and the Earth’s orbit in blue. The sun is about 230 million km on average (143 million miles) and the planet crosses this orbit in a time equivalent to 687 Earth days, and during its rotation in this orbit a number of phenomena occur, including conjugation.
A solar day or sol on Mars is slightly longer than a day on Earth: 24 hours 39 minutes 35.2 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, which is equal to 320 days and 18.2 hours.
The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19 degrees with respect to the orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of the Earth. As a result, Mars has seasons (seasons) like Earth, although they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is longer than Earth. In our time, the direction of the north pole of Mars is Close to Star Hen.
Its central anomaly is e = 0.093, which is relatively large, which indicates that its orbit is clearly elliptical, as it is at perihelion at a distance of 206 million km from the sun and when it reaches the aphelion it becomes at a distance of 249 million km from the sun, we see a clear difference in the two dimensions and this leads to The amount of sunlight falling on its surface varies by up to 45% between aphelion and perihelion, i.e. a difference of 30° and the subsequent changes in the planet’s climate between the two locations, and the temperature on the surface ranges between winter and summer 144° to 27° On average, the temperature It is estimated at about 23 to 55 degrees.
Mars has a relatively eccentricity of about 0.09 out of the other seven planets in the solar system, only Mercury has an orbital eccentricity, it is known that in the past Mars had a much more circular orbit, at one point i.e. 1.35 million years ago, Mars had an orbital eccentricity of about 0.002 less Much of Earth today, Mars’ eccentric cycle is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth’s 100,000-year cycle, Mars has a much longer eccentric cycle, with a period of 2.2 million Earth years, which is more than the 96,000-year cycle in the orbital declination graphs, over the 35,000th In the past year, the orbit of Mars has become slightly more eccentric due to the gravitational effects of other planets, the closer distance between Earth and Mars will continue to decrease moderately for 25,000 years.
Life on Mars:
The discovery of an 11-billion-year-old Jupiter-like planet: Using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite “TESS”, an international team of astronomers discovered an ancient and hot space world similar to the planet “Jupiter” orbiting the dwarf star “G”.
The newly discovered exoplanet, called “TOI-5542 b”, is the size of the planet “Jupiter” and the discovery was reported in a paper published on September 29, on the pre-publishing research site “Archiv”, and “TES” is conducting a survey of about 200 thousand of the brightest stars near The Sun, with the aim of searching for transiting exoplanets, has so far identified nearly 6000 candidate exoplanets, 256 of which have been confirmed so far. Now, a group of astronomers, led by Nolan Greaves, from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, recently confirmed the planet « TOI, which was determined after analyzing a transit signal in the light curve of the metal-poor dwarf star “G” known as “TOI-5542”, and the planetary nature of this signal was confirmed by follow-up observations using the high-resolution radial velocity planetary researcher HARPS at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. In their study, the researchers said that the newly discovered planet outside the solar system has a radius of about 1.01 the radius of Jupiter, and a mass of 1.32 the mass of Jupiter, which results in a density at the level of 1.6 g / cm 3 and revolves around its parent star every 75.12 days, at a distance of 1. 0.33 astronomical units of it, and the equilibrium temperature of the planet was estimated at 441 K, so he classified it Astronomers believe that it is of a type called “hot Jupiter” and the host star “TOI-5542” that the planet orbits around, has a radius of about 1.06 solar radii, which is 11 percent less mass than the sun, and the star has an effective temperature of About 5700 K, and a luminosity of about 1.05 solar luminosity, and an estimated age of 10.8 billion years, and the researchers say in their study, “Taking into account that the star TOI-5542 is about 11 billion years old, its exoplanet is, therefore, one of the oldest The planets are of the type (hot Jupiter) at all, and one of the few for which there is an estimate of their age.” “Hot Jupiter” is a class of gas giant exoplanets, which is similar to “Jupiter” in terms of shape, but its orbital cycle is very short, and the name “Jupiter” was given “Hot Jupiters” are on this type of planet, due to their great proximity to their stars, and the high temperature of their surface atmosphere.