Celebrate Red Planet Day!

Red Planet Day is celebrated every year on November 28th. This celebration was created to commemorate the launch of the Spacecraft Mariner 4 on November 28th, 1964. Mariner 4 went on a 228-day mission that brought the spacecraft within 6,118 miles of Mars, the Red Planet, on July 14, 1965. This mission was the first successfully flyby of Mars and supplied us with the first close up pictures of the martian planet.

Since that first successful mission, we have come a long way! Many attempts have been made to explore Mars with some of them being successful. We currently have three orbiters surveying Mars that provide information every day. There have also been several successful rover landings on the Red Planet, including the most recent landing of the Mars Science Laboratory named Curiosity.

With Curiosity exploring and providing information everyday on the fourth planet from the sun, now is an exciting time to study Mars and our solar system. Check in on the Curiosity Rover on Twitter or get more information on past, present and future Mars missions at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/.

Facts about Mars

• Mars is named after the Greek God of War, Ares.
• Mars is called the Red Planet because of it’s iron-rich soil and air.
• The Red Planet is the seventh largest planet in our solar system.
• Mars has a wide temperature range. It can be anywhere from  -225 to 70+ degrees Fahrenheit.
• Gravity on Mars is only 38% of Earth’s gravity. A 100 pound person would only weight 38 pounds on Mars.
• Mars is home to the largest mountain in our solar system. The mountain, Olympus Mons, is 17 miles high. That’s three times as tall as Mount Everest!
• The diameter of Mars is half the size of Earth or twice the size of Earth’s moon.
• Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. 
• A year on Mars is 687 days – 322 days longer than a year on Earth!
• A day on Mars is about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.