The Planets- Mars 2

Many questions remain. At present, Mars is too cold and its atmosphere is too thin to allow liquid water to exist at the surface for long. More water exists frozen in the polar ice caps, and enough water

exists to form ice clouds, but the quantity of water required to carve Mars' great channels and flood plains is not evident on - or near - the surface today. Images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft suggest that underground reserves of water may break through the surface as springs. The answers may lie deep beneath Mars' red soil.

Unraveling the story of water on Mars is important to unlocking its past climate history, which will help us understand the evolution of all planets, including our own. Water is also believed to be a central ingredient for the initiation of life; the evidence of past or present water on Mars is expected to hold clues about past or present life on Mars, as well as the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. And, before humans can safely go to Mars, we need to know much more about the planet's environment, including the availability of resources such as water.

Mars has some remarkable geological characteristics, including the largest volcanic mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons (27 km high and 600 km across); volcanoes in the northern Tharsis region that are so huge they deform the planet's roundness; and a gigantic equatorial rift valley, the Valles Marineris. This canyon system stretches a distance equivalent to the distance from New York to Los Angeles; Arizona's Grand Canyon could easily fit into one of the side canyons of this great chasm.

Mars also has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. Although no one knows how they formed, they may be asteroids snared by Mars' gravity.

Next- Planet Mars facts and figures part3