Mars

Mars!

      Our solar system is made up of eight plants that orbit around the sun and is nearly five billion years old. Mars is the forth planet from the sun with a distance of 142 million miles. It takes about 687 days for Mars to orbit the sun once. It is a rocky planet, also known as a terrestrial planet. Mars used to have a solid surface but that has been changed because of volcanoes, impacts, crustal movement, and atmospheric effects such as dust storms.

       Mars was named after the ancient Roman god of war. It is known as the Red Planet. Mars was given this name because iron minerals in the Martian soil oxidize cause the soil and the dusty atmosphere to look red. It is the seventh largest planet with a diameter of 6,794 km and a mass of 6.4219 x 10²³. Evidence proposes that Mars once had rivers, streams, lakes, and even an ocean. As Mars’ atmosphere slowly depleted into outer space, the surface water began to permanently evaporate. Today the only water on Mars is either frozen in caps or underground.

      The first successful landing on Mars was on July 4^th, 1997. In 2004 the Mars Expedition Rovers landed on Mars and sent back geologic data and pictures. They continued to operate on Mars more than three years after landing. Also Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos. They are believed to be asteroids that were pulled into orbit around Mars. 

The following link provides more information about the planet Mars. This website was also used as a resources for our summary. 
http://www.space.com/47-mars-the-red-planet-fourth-planet-from-the-sun.html
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Mars