မာရ်သ်

ပ္ဍဲကဵု ဂြိုဟ်မာရ်သ်ဂှ် နွံကဵု အခိင်တ္ၚဲ အခိင်ဗတံ ကေုာံ ဥတုတၞဟ်ခြာ ညံင်ရဴ ပ္ဍဲကဵု ဂၠးတိပိုယ်ဏအ်ကီုရ။ မုဟိုတ်ရောမ္ဂး ဂြိုဟ်မာရ်သ်ဂှ်လေဝ် ဂေတ်ကဝဲဒၟံင် ပ္ဍဲကဵု ရိပၞိဟ်ဇကု ညံင်ရဴ ဂၠးတိပိုယ်ဏအ်ကီုရ။ ပ္ဍဲကဵု မာရ်သ်ဂှ် နွံကဵု သြလုမ်ပုသ်မောန် (Olympus Mons) မဒှ်ဒၞာဲဒဵုခတိုဟ်လဝ်ဇၞော်ဇၞော် ကေုာံ ကုန်ဒဵုသၠုင်အိုတ် ၜိုန်မဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု သၞောတ်တ္ၚဲ၊ ပါဲနူဂှ်တုဲ သီုနွံကဵု ဇြဟ်ဇမၠိင် (Valles Marineris) မဂၠိင်အိုတ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု သၞောတ်တ္ၚဲပိုယ်ဏအ်ကီုရ။ ပ္ဍဲကရေက်သၟဝ်ကျာ ၄၀% ဂှ် နွံကဵု ခလံက်မညဳရ။ မာရ်သ်ဂှ် နွံကဵု ဂိတုၜါမ၊ ဂိတုမွဲမဂှ် ညးကော်စ ပဝ်ဗောသ် (Phobos) တုဲ မွဲမဂှ် ညးကော်စ ဒါဲမောသ် (Deimos)၊ ဂိတုတအ်ဂှ် ဇကုဍောတ်တုဲ မနွံကဵု သဏ္ဌာန်ဗီုပြင် ဟွံညဳ။ ဂိတုၜါဝွံ မဒှ်ဂြိုဟ်ကရေက် (asteroid) လုပ်စိုပ်အာ ဗဝိုင်မာရ်သ်တုဲ ဒှ်အာဂိတု (ဝါ) မဒးဂေတ်ပူဒၟံင် မာရ်သ် မတုပ်ညံင်ရဴ ဂြိုဟ်ကရေက်တၞဟ်ၜါ ၅၂၆၁ ယူရေက (5261 Eureka)၊ ကေုာံ  မာရ်သ် တြဝ်ဇန် (Mars trojan)ကီုရ။

မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ဟိုတ်မဒှ် ဂြိုဟ် မတုပ်ညံင်ဂၠးတိပိုယ်ဏအ်တုဲ တၠပညာတအ် ပလံင်ဏာ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ်တုဲ အာလ္ၚတ်ကၠုင်ဒၟံင် ဗွဲမဂၠိုင်ရ။ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ် မာရိနာ ၄ Mariner 4  မဒှ်က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ် နကဵု ဂကောံနာသာ မပလံင်ဏာ သွက်ဂွံလ္ၚတ်မာရ်သ် ပ္ဍဲ ၂၈ နဝ်ဝေမ်ဗါ ၁၉၆၄ ဂှ် ဒှ်က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ် ကိုပ်ကၠာအိုတ် သွက်ဂွံလ္ၚတ်မာရ်သ်ရ။ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ်ဂှ် လုပ်ကြပ်ညောန် ကုမာရ်သ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု ၁၅ ဇူလာင် ၁၉၆၅။ မာရိနာ၄ လ္ၚတ်ကေတ် မပတံ ကဵု ဇမၞော်တၟာ မာရ်သ်ဂှ် နွံ ၜိုတ် 0.1% ကုဂၠးတိ၊ တက်ကေတ် ဗီုရုပ် ဂြိုဟ် မနွံဒၟံင် ဗဒါဲဗဒါဲ မာရ်သ်တအ်ဒှ်တမ်ရ။ ;   နကဵု ဂြိုဟ်သဝ်ဝိတ် မာရ်သ် ၃ ဂှ် စှ်ေလတူ မာရ်သ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု ဒဳသေမ်ဗါ ၁၉၇၁၊ ဆဂး စှ်ေစိုပ်မာရ်သ်တုဲ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ်ဏအ် အဆက်ပိုတ်အာ ကုဂၠးတိ။  ပ္ဍဲ ၂၀ ဇူလာင် ၁၉၇၆၊ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ် ဝိကိန်၁ Viking 1 စှ်ေ ပ္ဍဲကဵု ဒၞာဲဗလး မMartian surface။  ပ္ဍဲ ၄ ဇူလာင် ၁၉၉၇၊ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ် မာရ်သ် ပါတ်ဖိန်ဒါ  Mars Pathfinder စှ်ေ ပ္ဍဲလတူမာရ်သ်တုဲ ပ္ဍဲ ဇူလာင် ၅ ဂှ် ကွဳရဝ်ဝေ စတိတ် ဂေတ်လ္ၚတ် လတူမာရ်သ်ရ။ ကွဳရဝ်ဝေ ဏအ်ဂှ် ဒှ်ကွဳရဝ်ဝေ မအာ လတူမာရ်သ် နူဂၠးတိဏအ် ကိုပ်ကၠာအိုတ်ရ။  ဂြိုဟ်သြဗိတ် မာရ်သ် အေက်သပြေသ် Mars Express orbiter မဒှ် က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ် နူကဵု အေဂျေန်သဳအကာသဥရောပ (European Space Agency - ESA) အာစိုပ် သြဗိတ် (လၟောဝ်ဂၠံင်) မာရ်သ် ပ္ဍဲ ၂၅ ဒဳသေမ်ဗါ ၂၀၀၃။ ပ္ဍဲဇာန်နဝါရဳ ၂၀၀၄ နကဵု ဂကောံနာသာ ပ္တိုန်ဏာ ကွဳလ္ၚတ်မာရ်သ် (Mars Exploration Rovers) မကဵုလဝ်ယၟု သပိရိတ် (Spirit) ကဵု အောပ်ပေါတ်တူနိတိ (Opportunity) ဂှ် သီုၜါ စိုပ်အာ လတူမာရ်သ်တုဲ ကွဳသပိရိတ်ဂှ် ဆကၠောန်ဒၟံင်ကမၠောန် ပလံင်ကဵုဒၟံင် တင်ဂၞင်ဂမၠိုင် စဵုကဵု ၂၂ မာတ် ၂၀၁၀ တုဲ ကွဳအောပ်ပေါတူနိတိ ဂှ် စဵုကဵု ၁၀ ဂျုန် ၂၀၁၈။ ;   ကွဳရဝ်ဝေ နူကဵု ဂကောံနာသာ မကဵုလဝ်ယၟု  ကျူရိသြသိတိ (Curiosity) ဂှ် တိုန်စိုပ် ပ္ဍဲ ၆ သြဂုတ် ၂၀၁၂၊ မဒှ် ပရေင်ကမၠောန် ပါ်ဓါတ်သိပ္ပံမာရ်သ်  (Mars Science Laboratory - MSL) သွက်ဂွံ လ္ၚတ် ရာသဳဥတု ကေုာံ ပထဝဳ လတူမာရ်သ်ရ။ ပ္ဍဲ ၂၄ သေပ်တေမ်ဗါ ၂၀၁၄ နူကဵု ဂကောံသုတေသနအကာသအိန္ဒိယ (Indian Space Research Organisation - ISRO) ဗလးဏာ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ် သွက်ဂွံလ္ၚတ် သြဗိတ် (လၟောဝ်ဂၠံင်) မာရ်သ်တုဲ အိန္ဒိယဂှ် ဒှ်ဂကောံ မရနုက်ကဵုပန် မလ္ၚတ်ဒၟံင် မာရ်သ်။;  ဨမိရတ် ပံင်ကောံအာရာပ်  (United Arab Emirates) ဂှ် ဒှ်ဂကောံမရနုက်ကဵု မသုန် ကြဴနူ က္ၜင်ဂြိုဟ်ညး စိုပ်သတီုကျာမာရ်သ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု ၉ ဖေဖဝ်ဝါရဳ ၂၀၂၁။ ကွဳ နူကဵု ဂကောံနာသာ မကဵုလဝ်ယၟု ပါသေဝါရေန် (Perseverance rover) စှ်ေစိုပ် လတူမာရ်သ် ဗွဲမအံင်ဇၞး ပ္ဍဲကဵု ၁၈ ဖေဖဝ်ဝါရဳ ၂၀၂၁။ 

တၠပညာတအ် လ္ၚတ်ဒၟံင် ပရူအရာမတန်တဴလဝ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု မာရ်သ် အခိင်အတိက်တေအ်၊ ဗီုကဵု သတ်လမျီု နွံလဝ် ဒှ်မာန် ဟွံမာန်တအ်ရ။ ကွဳရဝ်ဝေ မကဵုလဝ်ယၟု ရဝ်သလိန် ဖြန်ကၠေန် (Rosalind Franklin rover) မဗလး နူကဵု အေဂျေန်သဳ အကာသ ဥရောပ ဂှ် နကဵု တင်ရန်တၟအ် သွက်ဂွံလ္ၚတ် အကာသဇဳဝ နွံရ။  ပ္ဍဲလတူဗလးမုက် မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ဍာ် နကဵုဗီုပြင်ဍာ်ဍာ်ဂှ် တန်တဴ ဟွံဂွံ၊ ဟိုတ်နူကဵု သတီုကျာအောန်လောန်အာ။ သတီုကျာ လတူမာရ်သ်ဂှ် ပတုပ် ကဵု သတီုကျာ ပ္ဍဲဂၠးတိမ္ဂး နွံအောန်နူ ၁%။  ပၞိဟ်ၜါလပါ် မနွံကဵု ဗလးညဳညဳဂှ် ဟိုတ်နူ မွဲအခိင်တေအ် ကေင်နွံကဵု ဍာ်ဗွဲမဂၠိုင် ဒှ်မာန်ရ။ ယဝ်ရ ဍာ်ကြံင် နူကဵုပၞိဟ်ၜါလပါ်ဂှ် လေင်မ္ဂး ပ္ဍဲကဵု ဂြိုဟ်ဂှ် ဍာ်ဗၠိုတ်စိုပ် ၁၁ မဳတာ (၃၆ပေ)။ ပ္ဍဲနဝ်ဝေမ်ဗါ ၂၀၁၆ ဂှ် ဂကောံနာသာ ပ္တိတ်လိက်လလောင်တြး ဒဒှ်ရ ညးတအ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ဍာ်ကြံင် (ဍာ်ကလောအ်) သၟဝ်တိ ဗွဲမဂၠိုင် ပ္ဍဲကဵု ဒေသဥတောပိယ ပလနိတိယ (Utopia Planitia region)။ ဂလိုင်ဍာ်ဂှ် နွံၜိုတ် ဍာ်မနွံပ္ဍဲ ကၟာ  Lake Superior မဒှ်ကၟာ ဇၞော်အိုတ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု အမေရိကသၟဝ်ကျာ။  

မာရ်သ်ဂှ် နူကဵု ဂၠးတိဝွံ နကဵု မတ်သာမညလေဝ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် မာန် ဗွဲမလောဲသွာကီုရ။

 သဏ္ဌာန်ခန္ဓ 
မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ဗွဲသၟဟ်မ္ဂး နွံၜိုတ် ကဝက် ဂၠးတိပိုယ်တုဲ၊ သမၠဲဍေဟ်ဂှ် ဍောတ်နူ ဗလးတၞဳ (ဗလးတိသၟး) ဂၠးတိပိုယ်ဏအ်ရ။ မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ကမၠေတ် (dense) အောန်နူ ဂၠးတိ၊ မနွံ ဂလိုင် volume ၁၅%  ကုဂၠးတိ၊ ၁၁% mass ကုဂၠးတိ၊ မနွံကဵု ဒြဟတ်ဇရောတ် ၜိုတ် ၃၈% ကုဂၠးတိ။  ဟိုတ်မဂွံညာတ်ဒၟံင် အသာ် ဗကေတ်-လဳမဴဂှ် ဒၟာနူ ဓါတ်ပသဲ(III) သြဇြဳဒေ (iron(III) oxide) ဟွံသေင်မ္ဂး အိက်နှိင်။ မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ရံင်အသာ် မတုပ်ဒၟံင် တင်လာင်၊ ဒၞာဲလ္ၚဵု ဒှ်ဒၟံင်အသာ်ထဝ်၊ အသာ်လမ္စံက်၊ အသာ်ဗရိုတ်၊ အသာ်သ္ၚေက်ညံင်င် တန်တဴကဵု ဒၞာဲလဵု ပ္ဍဲဗလးမုက် ပိုယ်မရံင်ဂှ်ရ။NASA – Mars in a Minute: Is Mars Really Red? (Transcript ) 

 လဒက်ပတန် ဗွဲအပ္ဍဲ 
ညံင်ရဴ ဂၠးတိကီု မာရ်သ်လေဝ် နွံကဵု ကထိုက်တိနာနာ မွဲကထိုက် ကုမွဲကထိုက် ကဆံင်ကမၠေတ် ဟွံတုပ်ရေင်သကအ်ရ။ တၠပညာသိပ္ပံတအ် ပတှ်ေကေတ် ပၞောဝ်ကဵု ကထိုက်တအ်ဂှ် အောန်အိုတ် ကထိုက်ဍာ်ဍာ် သ္ဒးနွံမွဲကီုရ။ အတိုင်ဗ္ၜတ် မာရ်သ် မစၟတ်သမ္တီလဝ်လၟုဟ်မ္ဂး ကထိုက်တအ်ဂှ် နွံကဵု ကဝက်လၞင်ဗဝိုက် (radius) ၜိုတ် ၊ တိမာရ်သ်ၜိုတ် ၁၆-၁၇%ဂှ် ဒှ်ပသဲ ကဵု နိက်ကေလ် (nickel)။ မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ညံင်ရဴဂၠးတိဏအ်ကီု နွံကဵု ကရေက်တေက်တဝ်နိစ် (tectonic)ဂမၠိုင်တုဲ ဒဵုခမ္တိုဟ် (volcanic)ဂမၠိုင်လေဝ် နွံလဝ်ကီုရ။ ပါဲနူကဵု ဒြပ်သဳလဳကောန် (silicon) ကေုာံ အောက်သဳဂျေန် (oxygen) တုဲ ဓါတ်မဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ပ္ဍဲလတူ မာရ်သ် ဗွဲမဂၠိုင်ဂှ် ပသဲ၊ ဓါတ်ဇရောတ် (magnesium)၊ အလူမဳနဳယာမ် (aluminium)၊ ခပဵု/ကာလ်သဳယာမ် (calcium) ကေုာံ ပဝ်တဿဳယာမ် (potassium) တအ်ရ။ သတီုကထိုက်တိ ဂြိုဟ်ဂှ် ဗွဲသၟဟ် နွံစၜိုတ်တုဲ သတီု မတီုအိုတ်ဂှ် နွံ။ သတီုကထိုက်တိ ဂၠးတိပိုယ်ဂှ် ဗွဲသၟဟ် နွံ။

မာရ်သ်ဂှ် နွံကဵု ကသဳတိ၊ နကဵုစၟတ် InSight ဂှ် ပ္ဍဲသၞာံ ၂၀၁၉ သၟးဂှ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ကသဳတိ ကတဵုဒှ် ပ္ဍဲမာတ် ဂၠိုင်နူ ၄၅၀ အလန်။

 ဗလးမုက် ပထဝဳ 
မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ဒှ်ဂြိုဟ်တၞဳမွဲ (ဂြိုဟ်မနွံကဵုတိ) တုဲ ပ္ဍဲဗလးလတူဂှ် နွံကဵု ဓါတ်သဳလဳကောန်၊ အောက်သဳဂျေန် ကေုာံ ဒြပ်တၞဟ်တအ် ဗွဲမဂၠိုင် တၟအ်ဂမၠိုင်ရ။ ဗလးလတူ မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ဗွဲမဂၠိုင် နွံကဵု တၟအ်လမ္စံက် (tholeiitic basalt)ဂမၠိုင်၊ ဒၞာဲလ္ၚဵုဂှ် တၟအ်မနွံကဵု ဓါတ်သဳလဳကောန်ဂှ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ်ဂၠိုင်ကီုလေဝ် တၟအ်ဗွဲမဂၠိုင်ဂှ် တုပ်ကဵု တၟအ်မဂွံဆဵုဒၟံင် ပ္ဍဲလတူဂၠးတိဏအ်ကီုရ။ ပ္ဍဲဒေသအလ်ဗေဒဝ်အောန် (ဒေသ မဒးလျးတ္ၚဲအောန်) ဂှ် နွံကဵု (plagioclase feldspar)ဂၠိုင်တုဲ၊ ဒေသအလ်ဗေဒဝ်အောန် လပါ်သၟဝ်ကျာဂှ် နွံဂကူတၟအ်ကလိတ်ကလိတ် (sheet silicates and high-silicon glass)ဂၠိုင်။ ဒေသကရေက်သၠုင်ကျာ ဒၞာဲကုန်သမၠုင်တအ်ဂှ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် တၟအ်ခပဵုဂၠိုင်။ တုဲပၠန် ဒၞာဲမနွံကဵု ဓါတ်ဟေမတိတေ (hematite) ကေုာံ ဓါတ်သြလိဝိနေ (olivine) ဂၠိုင်ဂှ်လေဝ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ်ကီုရ။ ဒၞာဲဗွဲမဂၠိုင်ဂှ် ဂြောပ်အုပ်ဒၟံင် နကဵု ခဗိုက်ခၞိက်ဓါတ်ပသဲIII အောက်သဳဒေ (iron(III) oxide dust)ရ။


ပ္ဍဲကဵု မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ညံင်ရဴဂၠးတိပိုယ်ဏအ် မနွံကဵု ဓါတ်ဇရောတ် (magnetic field) ပ္ဍဲကဵုတၞုင်ပၞိဟ်ၜါလပါ်ဂှ် နကဵုသက်သဳပေင်င် ၜိုန်ရဟွံတီကီုလေဝ် လ္ၚတ်မင်ရံင်တုဲ ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ပရေင်ချဳဓရာင် ဓါတ်ဇရောတ် ပ္ဍဲဒၞာဲလ္ၚဵုရ။ ဟိုတ်ဂှ်ရ ပ္ဍဲကဵု မာရ်သ်လေဝ် နွံကဵု ဓါတ်ဇရောတ် ညံင်ရဴ ပ္ဍဲဒေသပၞိဟ်ၜါလပါ် ပ္ဍဲဂၠးတိပိုယ်ကီုရောင်ဂှ် ပတှ်ေကေတ်ရ။ လညာတ်တေသြရဳမွဲ မပ္တိတ်လဝ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု သၞာံ ၁၉၉၉ တုဲ လညာတ်တေသြရဳဂှ် ကလေင်စၟဳစၟတ်လဝ် ပ္ဍဲအံက်တဝ်ဗါ ၂၀၀၅ မသ္ဂးလဝ်မ္ဂး ပ္ဍဲကဵု မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ပရေင်ချဳဓရာင် ကမြေက်တေက်တဝ်နိစ် (plate tectonic activity) ကေင်ကတဵုဒှ်လဝ် ပ္ဍဲအခိင် မတုဲကၠုင် ပန်ဘဳလဳယာန် သၞာံတေအ်၊ ဟိုတ်ဂှ်ရ ဓါတ်ဇရောတ် ပ္ဍဲဂြိုဟ်ဂှ် အသိင်ဍိုန်လျအာရ။

အရာမပတှ်ေကေတ်မ္ဂး မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ကတဵုဒှ်ကၠုင် နူကဵုလၟေင်ဒဒှ် မကောံကလောအ်ကၠုင်ညိညိ နူကဵုခၞိက်ဗဗိုက် ကေုာံ တၟအ် တိ မပြးဇးဒၟံင် ပ္ဍဲကဵု လၟေင်ဂၠံင်သြရ်ဗိတ်တ္ၚဲ ပ္ဍဲအခိင် သၞောတ်တ္ၚဲမစကတဵုဒှ်ကၠုင်တေအ်ရ။ ဟိုတ်နူ ဒၞာဲဒတန် မာရ်သ်မနွံ အပ္ဍဲကဵု သၞောတ်တ္ၚဲတုဲ ပ္ဍဲမာရ်သ်ဂှ် နွံကဵု ဓါတ်နာနာသာ်ရ။ ဓါတ်မတူလေင်လောဲ မပ္တံကဵု ဓါတ်ကလဝ်ရိန် (chlorine)၊ ဓါတ်ဖဝ်သဖဝ်ရုသ် (phosphorus) ကေုာံ ဓါတ်သုလ်ဖုရ် (sulphur)တအ်ဂှ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ဂၠိုင်နူ လတူဂၠးတိဏအ်ဏီရ။

ကြဴနူ ဂြိုဟ်ဂမၠိုင် ကတဵုဒှ်ကၠုင်တုဲ ဂြိုဟ်အိုတ်သီုဂှ် ဒးဒုင်ဇီုကပိုက် နကဵုဗဳသတဳ ညးမကော်စ "မဒးဒုင်ထောအ်ဗုမ် ဗွဲမဇၞော်ကဵုဒြဟတ်/Late Heavy Bombardment" ရ။ ပၞေတ် နူကဵုအခိင်တေအ်ဂှ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ်ဒၟံင် ပ္ဍဲလတူဗလးမုက် မာရ်သ် ၜိုတ် ၆၀%၊ မဒှ်ဒၞာဲ သလံက်ဒၟံင်ရ။ ပ္ဍဲကဵု ကမြေက်သၟဝ်ကျာ မာရ်သ် နွံသလံက် ပၞေတ်ဇမၞော်မွဲ နွံပါင်တၟာ၊ ဇၞော်နူ သလံက် ပ္ဍဲဂိတု ပ္ဍဲပၞိဟ်သၠုင်ကျာ ပန်ဆ၊ မဒှ် ပၞေတ်ဇၞော်အိုတ် ၜိုတ်မဂွံဆဵုကေတ်လဝ် ပ္ဍဲကဵု ဂြိုဟ်ဂမၠိုင်ရ။  ဟိုတ်ဂှ်ရ တေသြရဳဂှ်ဟီု လောန်ကၠုင် သၞာံၜိုတ် ပန်ဘဳလဳယာန်တေအ် မာရ်သ် ဒးဒုင်ဇီုကပိုက်လဝ် ဗဳသတဳမွဲ မနွံတၟာဂြိုဟ်ပလူတဝ် (Pluto)။


ပထဝဳဝင် မာရ်သ်ဂှ် ပါ်ကေတ် နကဵုကာလနာနာသာ်မာန်ရ။ ဆဂး ဗွဲအပြောမ်မ္ဂး ပါ်ကေတ် အတိုင်ဗွဲသၟဝ်ဝွံ ပိကာလဂွံရ။
 ကာလနဝ်အကိန် (Noachian period): မကၠောန်ဗဒှ် ကရေက်မာရ်သ် တြေံအိုတ်၊ နူကဵု သၞာံမလောန်ကၠုင် ၜိုတ် ၄.၅ ကဵု ၃.၅ ဘဳလဳယာန်။ ကရေက်မာရ်သ် နူကဵုလက်ထက်နဝ်အကိန်ဂှ် နွံကဵု ပၞေတ် ကပိုက်ဇၞော်ဇၞော် ဗွဲမဂၠိုင်။ က Noachian age surfaces are scarred by many large impact craters. The Tharsis bulge, a volcanic upland, is thought to have formed during this period, with extensive flooding by liquid water late in the period.
 Hesperian period (named after Hesperia Planum): 3.5 to between 3.3 and 2.9 billion years ago. The Hesperian period is marked by the formation of extensive lava plains.
 Amazonian period (named after Amazonis Planitia): between 3.3 and 2.9 billion years ago to the present. Amazonian regions have few meteorite impact craters, but are otherwise quite varied. Olympus Mons formed during this period, with lava flows elsewhere on Mars.

Geological activity is still taking place on Mars. The Athabasca Valles is home to sheet-like lava flows created about 200 Mya. Water flows in the grabens called the Cerberus Fossae occurred less than 20 Mya, indicating equally recent volcanic intrusions. On 19 February 2008, images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed evidence of an avalanche from a  cliff.

 တိ 

The Phoenix lander returned data showing Martian soil to be slightly alkaline and containing elements such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chlorine. These nutrients are found in soils on Earth, and they are necessary for growth of plants. Experiments performed by the lander showed that the Martian soil has a basic pH of 7.7, and contains 0.6% of the salt perchlorate. This is a very high concentration and makes the Martian soil toxic (see also Martian soil toxicity).

Streaks are common across Mars and new ones appear frequently on steep slopes of craters, troughs, and valleys. The streaks are dark at first and get lighter with age. The streaks can start in a tiny area, then spread out for hundreds of metres. They have been seen to follow the edges of boulders and other obstacles in their path. The commonly accepted theories include that they are dark underlying layers of soil revealed after avalanches of bright dust or dust devils. Several other explanations have been put forward, including those that involve water or even the growth of organisms.

 ဟိဒြဝ်လဝ်ဂျဳ (ဓါတ်ဍာ်) 
ဍာ်လေင်င်ဂှ် ပ္ဍဲလတူ ဗလးမုက် မာရ်သ်ဂှ် တန်တဴဟွံဂွံ၊ ဟိုတ်နူကဵု ဒြဟတ်ဒမြိုဟ်ကျာ လတူမာရ်သ်ဂှ် ဍိုန်လောန်အာ။ ဒြဟတ်ဒမြိုဟ်ကျာ လတူမာရ်သ် ယဝ်ပတောအ်ၜတ် ကုဒြဟတ်ဒမြိုဟ် လတူဂၠးတိပိုယ်မ္ဂး နွံ အောန်နူ ၁% ဏီ၊ ပ္ဍဲဒၞာဲသဝ်ကွေဟ်ဟ် ပ္ဍဲအခိင်ဂၠေအ်အ်မ္ဂး နွံဂၠိုင်ညိရ။ ပ္ဍဲကဵု ပၞိဟ်ၜါလပါ်ဂှ် ဍာ်ကမြံင် (ဍာ်ကလောအ်) နွံတုဲ နွံကဵု ဍာ်ဗွဲမဂၠိုင်ရ။ ဂလိုင် ဍာ်ကမြံင် ပ္ဍဲကဵု ပၞိဟ်လပါ်သၠုင်ကျာဂှ် ယဝ်ရလေင်အာမ္ဂး ပ္ဍဲဗလးမုက် ဂြိုဟ်ဂှ် ပ္ဍဲဒၞာဲတိသဝ် နွံၜိုတ်ဇမျိုဟ်မာန်ရ။ ဒၞာဲမဂံက် (permafrost) စဵုကဵု ဍာ်ကြံင် နူကဵု ပၞိဟ် ကဵု လာတဳကျုတ်ဂှ် နွံၜိုတ်60°။ ဍာ်ဗွဲမဂၠိုင်ဂၠေင် လတူမာရ်သ်ဂှ် ပတှ်ေကေတ် ထိင်လဝ် နကဵု cryosphere မာရ်သ်ရ။ တင်ဂၞင် မကလိဂွံ နူကဵု ကွဳ Mars Express ကဵု Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ပ္ဍဲပၞိဟ်ၜါလပါ်ဂှ် နွံကဵု ဍာ်ကမြံင် ဗွဲမဂၠိုင်၊ တုဲပၠန် ပ္ဍဲကဵု လဒေါဝ်လာတိကျုတ်လေဝ် ဂွံဆဵုကေတ် ဍာ်ကမြံင်ကီုရ။ The Phoenix lander directly sampled water ice in shallow Martian soil on 31 July 2008.


Landforms visible on Mars strongly suggest that liquid water has existed on the planet's surface. Huge linear swathes of scoured ground, known as outflow channels, cut across the surface in about 25 places. These are thought to be a record of erosion caused by the catastrophic release of water from subsurface aquifers, though some of these structures have been hypothesized to result from the action of glaciers or lava. One of the larger examples, Ma'adim Vallis is  long, much greater than the Grand Canyon, with a width of  and a depth of  in places. It is thought to have been carved by flowing water early in Mars's history. The youngest of these channels are thought to have formed as recently as only a few million years ago. Elsewhere, particularly on the oldest areas of the Martian surface, finer-scale, dendritic networks of valleys are spread across significant proportions of the landscape. Features of these valleys and their distribution strongly imply that they were carved by runoff resulting from precipitation in early Mars history. Subsurface water flow and groundwater sapping may play important subsidiary roles in some networks, but precipitation was probably the root cause of the incision in almost all cases.

Along crater and canyon walls, there are thousands of features that appear similar to terrestrial gullies. The gullies tend to be in the highlands of the Southern Hemisphere and to face the Equator; all are poleward of 30° latitude. A number of authors have suggested that their formation process involves liquid water, probably from melting ice, although others have argued for formation mechanisms involving carbon dioxide frost or the movement of dry dust. No partially degraded gullies have formed by weathering and no superimposed impact craters have been observed, indicating that these are young features, possibly still active. Other geological features, such as deltas and alluvial fans preserved in craters, are further evidence for warmer, wetter conditions at an interval or intervals in earlier Mars history. Such conditions necessarily require the widespread presence of crater lakes across a large proportion of the surface, for which there is independent mineralogical, sedimentological and geomorphological evidence.


Further evidence that liquid water once existed on the surface of Mars comes from the detection of specific minerals such as hematite and goethite, both of which sometimes form in the presence of water. In 2004, Opportunity detected the mineral jarosite. This forms only in the presence of acidic water, which demonstrates that water once existed on Mars. More recent evidence for liquid water comes from the finding of the mineral gypsum on the surface by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity in December 2011. It is estimated that the amount of water in the upper mantle of Mars, represented by hydroxyl ions contained within the minerals of Mars's geology, is equal to or greater than that of Earth at 50–300 parts per million of water, which is enough to cover the entire planet to a depth of .

In 2005, radar data revealed the presence of large quantities of water ice at the poles and at mid-latitudes. The Mars rover Spirit sampled chemical compounds containing water molecules in March 2007. The Phoenix lander directly sampled water ice in shallow Martian soil on 31 July 2008.

On 18 March 2013, NASA reported evidence from instruments on the Curiosity rover of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock.  Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of , during the rover's traverse from the Bradbury Landing site to the Yellowknife Bay area in the Glenelg terrain. In September 2015, NASA announced that they had found conclusive evidence of hydrated brine flows on recurring slope lineae, based on spectrometer readings of the darkened areas of slopes.   These observations provided confirmation of earlier hypotheses based on timing of formation and their rate of growth, that these dark streaks resulted from water flowing in the very shallow subsurface. The streaks contain hydrated salts, perchlorates, which have water molecules in their crystal structure. The streaks flow downhill in Martian summer, when the temperature is above −23° Celsius, and freeze at lower temperatures.


Researchers suspect that much of the low northern plains of the planet were covered with an ocean hundreds of meters deep, though this remains controversial. In March 2015, scientists stated that such an ocean might have been the size of Earth's Arctic Ocean. This finding was derived from the ratio of water to deuterium in the modern Martian atmosphere compared to that ratio on Earth. The amount of Martian deuterium is eight times the amount that exists on Earth, suggesting that ancient Mars had significantly higher levels of water. Results from the Curiosity rover had previously found a high ratio of deuterium in Gale Crater, though not significantly high enough to suggest the former presence of an ocean. Other scientists caution that these results have not been confirmed, and point out that Martian climate models have not yet shown that the planet was warm enough in the past to support bodies of liquid water.

Near the northern polar cap is the  wide Korolev Crater, where the Mars Express orbiter found it to be filled with approximately  of water ice. The crater floor lies about  below the rim, and is covered by a  deep central mound of permanent water ice, up to  in diameter.

In February 2020, it was found that dark streaks called recurring slope lineae (RSL), which appear seasonably, are caused by briny water flowing for a few days annually.

 ဗလးဒေသပၞိဟ်

Mars has two permanent polar ice caps. During a pole's winter, it lies in continuous darkness, chilling the surface and causing the deposition of 25–30% of the atmosphere into slabs of CO2 ice (dry ice). When the poles are again exposed to sunlight, the frozen CO2 sublimes. These seasonal actions transport large amounts of dust and water vapor, giving rise to Earth-like frost and large cirrus clouds. Clouds of water-ice were photographed by the Opportunity rover in 2004.

The caps at both poles consist primarily (70%) of water ice. Frozen carbon dioxide accumulates as a comparatively thin layer about one metre thick on the north cap in the northern winter only, whereas the south cap has a permanent dry ice cover about eight metres thick. This permanent dry ice cover at the south pole is peppered by flat floored, shallow, roughly circular pits, which repeat imaging shows are expanding by meters per year; this suggests that the permanent CO2 cover over the south pole water ice is degrading over time. The northern polar cap has a diameter of about  during the northern Mars summer, and contains about  of ice, which, if spread evenly on the cap, would be  thick. (This compares to a volume of  for the Greenland ice sheet.) The southern polar cap has a diameter of  and a thickness of . The total volume of ice in the south polar cap plus the adjacent layered deposits has been estimated at 1.6 million cubic km. Both polar caps show spiral troughs, which recent analysis of SHARAD ice penetrating radar has shown are a result of katabatic winds that spiral due to the Coriolis Effect.

The seasonal frosting of areas near the southern ice cap results in the formation of transparent 1-metre-thick slabs of dry ice above the ground. With the arrival of spring, sunlight warms the subsurface and pressure from subliming CO2 builds up under a slab, elevating and ultimately rupturing it. This leads to geyser-like eruptions of CO2 gas mixed with dark basaltic sand or dust. This process is rapid, observed happening in the space of a few days, weeks or months, a rate of change rather unusual in geology – especially for Mars. The gas rushing underneath a slab to the site of a geyser carves a spiderweb-like pattern of radial channels under the ice, the process being the inverted equivalent of an erosion network formed by water draining through a single plughole.

 Geography and naming of surface features 


Although better remembered for mapping the Moon, Johann Heinrich Mädler and Wilhelm Beer were the first areographers. They began by establishing that most of Mars's surface features were permanent and by more precisely determining the planet's rotation period. In 1840, Mädler combined ten years of observations and drew the first map of Mars. Rather than giving names to the various markings, Beer and Mädler simply designated them with letters; Meridian Bay (Sinus Meridiani) was thus feature "a."

Today, features on Mars are named from a variety of sources. Albedo features are named for classical mythology. Craters larger than 60 km are named for deceased scientists and writers and others who have contributed to the study of Mars. Craters smaller than 60 km are named for towns and villages of the world with populations of less than 100,000. Large valleys are named for the word "Mars" or "star" in various languages; small valleys are named for rivers.

Large albedo features retain many of the older names, but are often updated to reflect new knowledge of the nature of the features. For example, Nix Olympica (the snows of Olympus) has become Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus). The surface of Mars as seen from Earth is divided into two kinds of areas, with differing albedo. The paler plains covered with dust and sand rich in reddish iron oxides were once thought of as Martian "continents" and given names like Arabia Terra (land of Arabia) or Amazonis Planitia (Amazonian plain). The dark features were thought to be seas, hence their names Mare Erythraeum, Mare Sirenum and Aurorae Sinus. The largest dark feature seen from Earth is Syrtis Major Planum. The permanent northern polar ice cap is named Planum Boreum, whereas the southern cap is called Planum Australe.

Mars's equator is defined by its rotation, but the location of its Prime Meridian was specified, as was Earth's (at Greenwich), by choice of an arbitrary point; Mädler and Beer selected a line for their first maps of Mars in 1830. After the spacecraft Mariner 9 provided extensive imagery of Mars in 1972, a small crater (later called Airy-0), located in the Sinus Meridiani ("Middle Bay" or "Meridian Bay"), was chosen by Merton Davies of the Rand CorporationDavies, M. E., and R. A. Berg, "Preliminary Control Net of Mars,"Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 373-393, 10 January 1971. for the definition of 0.0° longitude to coincide with the original selection.

Because Mars has no oceans and hence no "sea level", a zero-elevation surface had to be selected as a reference level; this is called the areoid of Mars, analogous to the terrestrial geoid. Zero altitude was defined by the height at which there is  of atmospheric pressure. This pressure corresponds to the triple point of water, and it is about 0.6% of the sea level surface pressure on Earth (0.006 atm).

 Map of quadrangles 

For mapping purposes, the United States Geological Survey divides the surface of Mars into thirty cartographic quadrangles, each named for a classical albedo feature it contains. The quadrangles can be seen and explored via the interactive image map below.

 Impact topography 

The dichotomy of Martian topography is striking: northern plains flattened by lava flows contrast with the southern highlands, pitted and cratered by ancient impacts. Research in 2008 has presented evidence regarding a theory proposed in 1980 postulating that, four billion years ago, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars was struck by an object one-tenth to two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon. If validated, this would make the Northern Hemisphere of Mars the site of an impact crater  in size, or roughly the area of Europe, Asia, and Australia combined, surpassing the South Pole–Aitken basin as the largest impact crater in the Solar System.


Mars is scarred by a number of impact craters: a total of 43,000 craters with a diameter of  or greater have been found. The largest confirmed of these is the Hellas impact basin, a light albedo feature clearly visible from Earth. Due to the smaller mass and size of Mars, the probability of an object colliding with the planet is about half that of Earth. Mars is located closer to the asteroid belt, so it has an increased chance of being struck by materials from that source. Mars is more likely to be struck by short-period comets, i.e., those that lie within the orbit of Jupiter. In spite of this, there are far fewer craters on Mars compared with the Moon, because the atmosphere of Mars provides protection against small meteors and surface modifying processes have erased some craters.

Martian craters can have a morphology that suggests the ground became wet after the meteor impacted.

 Volcanoes 

The shield volcano Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus) is an extinct volcano in the vast upland region Tharsis, which contains several other large volcanoes. Olympus Mons is roughly three times the height of Mount Everest, which in comparison stands at just over . It is either the tallest or second-tallest mountain in the Solar System, depending on how it is measured, with various sources giving figures ranging from about  high.

 Tectonic sites 

The large canyon, Valles Marineris (Latin for "Mariner Valleys", also known as Agathadaemon in the old canal maps), has a length of  and a depth of up to . The length of Valles Marineris is equivalent to the length of Europe and extends across one-fifth the circumference of Mars. By comparison, the Grand Canyon on Earth is only  long and nearly  deep. Valles Marineris was formed due to the swelling of the Tharsis area, which caused the crust in the area of Valles Marineris to collapse. In 2012, it was proposed that Valles Marineris is not just a graben, but a plate boundary where  of transverse motion has occurred, making Mars a planet with possibly a two-tectonic plate arrangement.

 Holes 
Images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have revealed seven possible cave entrances on the flanks of the volcano Arsia Mons. The caves, named after loved ones of their discoverers, are collectively known as the "seven sisters." Cave entrances measure from  wide and they are estimated to be at least  deep. Because light does not reach the floor of most of the caves, it is possible that they extend much deeper than these lower estimates and widen below the surface. "Dena" is the only exception; its floor is visible and was measured to be  deep. The interiors of these caverns may be protected from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface.

 Atmosphere 


Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, possibly because of numerous asteroid strikes, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, lowering the atmospheric density by stripping away atoms from the outer layer. Both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express have detected ionised atmospheric particles trailing off into space behind Mars, and this atmospheric loss is being studied by the MAVEN orbiter. Compared to Earth, the atmosphere of Mars is quite rarefied. Atmospheric pressure on the surface today ranges from a low of  on Olympus Mons to over  in Hellas Planitia, with a mean pressure at the surface level of . The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to that found  above Earth's surface. The resulting mean surface pressure is only 0.6% of that of Earth  . The scale height of the atmosphere is about , which is higher than Earth's, , because the surface gravity of Mars is only about 38% of Earth's, an effect offset by both the lower temperature and 50% higher average molecular weight of the atmosphere of Mars.

The atmosphere of Mars consists of about 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water. The atmosphere is quite dusty, containing particulates about 1.5 µm in diameter which give the Martian sky a tawny color when seen from the surface. It may take on a pink hue due to iron oxide particles suspended in it.

 Methane 


Methane has been detected in the Martian atmosphere; it occurs in extended plumes, and the profiles imply that the methane is released from discrete regions. The concentration of methane fluctuates from about 0.24 ppb during the northern winter to about 0.65 ppb during the summer.

Estimates of its lifetime range from 0.6 to 4 years, so its presence indicates that an active source of the gas must be present. Methane could be produced by non-biological process such as serpentinization involving water, carbon dioxide, and the mineral olivine, which is known to be common on Mars. Methanogenic microbial life forms in the subsurface are among possible sources. But even if rover missions determine that microscopic Martian life is the source of the methane, the life forms likely reside far below the surface, outside of the rover's reach. 


 Aurora 
In 1994, the European Space Agency's Mars Express found an ultraviolet glow coming from "magnetic umbrellas" in the Southern Hemisphere. Mars does not have a global magnetic field which guides charged particles entering the atmosphere. Mars has multiple umbrella-shaped magnetic fields mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, which are remnants of a global field that decayed billions of years ago.

In late December 2014, NASA's MAVEN spacecraft detected evidence of widespread auroras in Mars's Northern Hemisphere and descended to approximately 20–30° North latitude of Mars's equator. The particles causing the aurora penetrated into the Martian atmosphere, creating auroras below 100 km above the surface, Earth's auroras range from 100 km to 500 km above the surface. Magnetic fields in the solar wind drape over Mars, into the atmosphere, and the charged particles follow the solar wind magnetic field lines into the atmosphere, causing auroras to occur outside the magnetic umbrellas. 

On 18 March 2015, NASA reported the detection of an aurora that is not fully understood and an unexplained dust cloud in the atmosphere of Mars. 

In September 2017, NASA reported radiation levels on the surface of the planet Mars were temporarily doubled, and were associated with an aurora 25 times brighter than any observed earlier, due to a massive, and unexpected, solar storm in the middle of the month. 

 Climate 

Of all the planets in the Solar System, the seasons of Mars are the most Earth-like, due to the similar tilts of the two planets' rotational axes. The lengths of the Martian seasons are about twice those of Earth's because Mars's greater distance from the Sun leads to the Martian year being about two Earth years long. Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about  at the winter polar caps to highs of up to  in equatorial summer.  The wide range in temperatures is due to the thin atmosphere which cannot store much solar heat, the low atmospheric pressure, and the low thermal inertia of Martian soil. The planet is 1.52 times as far from the Sun as Earth, resulting in just 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 comparatively large eccentricity of the Martian orbit has a significant effect. Mars is near perihelion when it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere and winter in the north, and near aphelion when it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere and summer in the north. As a result, the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere are more extreme and the seasons in the northern are milder than would otherwise be the case. The summer temperatures in the south can be warmer than the equivalent summer temperatures in the north by up to .

Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over . These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun, and have been shown to increase the global temperature.


 Orbit and rotation 


Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly , and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours.

The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Earth. As a result, Mars has seasons like Earth, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day epoch, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb.

Mars has a relatively pronounced orbital eccentricity of about 0.09; of the seven other planets in the Solar System, only Mercury has a larger orbital eccentricity. It is known that in the past, Mars has had a much more circular orbit. At one point, 1.35 million Earth years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Earth today. Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth's cycle of 100,000 years. Mars has a much longer cycle of eccentricity, with a period of 2.2 million Earth years, and this overshadows the 96,000-year cycle in the eccentricity graphs. For the last 35,000 years, the orbit of Mars has been getting slightly more eccentric because of the gravitational effects of the other planets. The closest distance between Earth and Mars will continue to mildly decrease for the next 25,000 years.

 Habitability and search for life 


The current understanding of planetary habitabilitythe ability of a world to develop environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of lifefavors planets that have liquid water on their surface. Most often this requires the orbit of a planet to lie within the habitable zone, which for the Sun extends from just beyond Venus to about the semi-major axis of Mars. During perihelion, Mars dips inside this region, but Mars's thin (low-pressure) atmosphere prevents liquid water from existing over large regions for extended periods. The past flow of liquid water demonstrates the planet's potential for habitability. Recent evidence has suggested that any water on the Martian surface may have been too salty and acidic to support regular terrestrial life.


The lack of a magnetosphere and the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars are a challenge: the planet has little heat transfer across its surface, poor insulation against bombardment of the solar wind and insufficient atmospheric pressure to retain water in a liquid form (water instead sublimes to a gaseous state). Mars is nearly, or perhaps totally, geologically dead; the end of volcanic activity has apparently stopped the recycling of chemicals and minerals between the surface and interior of the planet.

In situ investigations have been performed on Mars by the Viking landers, Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Phoenix lander, and Curiosity rover. Evidence suggests that the planet was once significantly more habitable than it is today, but whether living organisms ever existed there remains unknown. The Viking probes of the mid-1970s carried experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil at their respective landing sites and had positive results, including a temporary increase of  production on exposure to water and nutrients. This sign of life was later disputed by scientists, resulting in a continuing debate, with NASA scientist Gilbert Levin asserting that Viking may have found life. A re-analysis of the Viking data, in light of modern knowledge of extremophile forms of life, has suggested that the Viking tests were not sophisticated enough to detect these forms of life. The tests could even have killed a (hypothetical) life form. Tests conducted by the Phoenix Mars lander have shown that the soil has an alkaline pH and it contains magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride. The soil nutrients may be able to support life, but life would still have to be shielded from the intense ultraviolet light. A recent analysis of martian meteorite EETA79001 found 0.6 ppm , 1.4 ppm , and 16 ppm , most likely of Martian origin. The  suggests the presence of other highly oxidizing oxychlorines, such as  or , produced both by UV oxidation of Cl and X-ray radiolysis of . Thus, only highly refractory and/or well-protected (sub-surface) organics or life forms are likely to survive.


A 2014 analysis of the Phoenix WCL showed that the  in the Phoenix soil has not interacted with liquid water of any form, perhaps for as long as 600 million years. If it had, the highly soluble  in contact with liquid water would have formed only . This suggests a severely arid environment, with minimal or no liquid water interaction.

Scientists have proposed that carbonate globules found in meteorite ALH84001, which is thought to have originated from Mars, could be fossilized microbes extant on Mars when the meteorite was blasted from the Martian surface by a meteor strike some 15 million years ago. This proposal has been met with skepticism, and an exclusively inorganic origin for the shapes has been proposed.

Small quantities of methane and formaldehyde detected by Mars orbiters are both claimed to be possible evidence for life, as these chemical compounds would quickly break down in the Martian atmosphere. Alternatively, these compounds may instead be replenished by volcanic or other geological means, such as serpentinite.


Impact glass, formed by the impact of meteors, which on Earth can preserve signs of life, has been found on the surface of the impact craters on Mars. Likewise, the glass in impact craters on Mars could have preserved signs of life if life existed at the site. 

In May 2017, evidence of the earliest known life on land on Earth may have been found in 3.48-billion-year-old geyserite and other related mineral deposits (often found around hot springs and geysers) uncovered in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. These findings may be helpful in deciding where best to search for early signs of life on the planet Mars.

In early 2018, media reports speculated that certain rock features at a site called Jura looked like a type of fossil, but project scientists say the formations likely resulted from a geological process at the bottom of an ancient drying lakebed, and are related to mineral veins in the area similar to gypsum crystals.

On 7 June 2018, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover had discovered organic compounds in sedimentary rocks dating to three billion years old, indicating that some of the building blocks for life were present.

In July 2018, scientists reported the discovery of a subglacial lake on Mars, the first known stable body of water on the planet. It sits  below the surface at the base of the southern polar ice cap and is about  wide. The lake was discovered using the MARSIS radar on board the Mars Express orbiter, and the profiles were collected between May 2012 and December 2015. The lake is centered at 193° East, 81° South, a flat area that does not exhibit any peculiar topographic characteristics. It is mostly surrounded by higher ground except on its eastern side, where there is a depression.

 Moons 

Mars has two relatively small (compared to Earth's) natural moons, Phobos (about  in diameter) and Deimos (about  in diameter), which orbit close to the planet. Asteroid capture is a long-favored theory, but their origin remains uncertain. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall; they are named after the characters Phobos (panic/fear) and Deimos (terror/dread), who, in Greek mythology, accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle. Mars was the Roman counterpart of Ares. In modern Greek, the planet retains its ancient name Ares (Aris: Άρης).

From the surface of Mars, the motions of Phobos and Deimos appear different from that of the Moon. Phobos rises in the west, sets in the east, and rises again in just 11 hours. Deimos, being only just outside synchronous orbitwhere the orbital period would match the planet's period of rotationrises as expected in the east but slowly. Despite the 30-hour orbit of Deimos, 2.7 days elapse between its rise and set for an equatorial observer, as it slowly falls behind the rotation of Mars.


Because the orbit of Phobos is below synchronous altitude, the tidal forces from the planet Mars are gradually lowering its orbit. In about 50 million years, it could either crash into Mars's surface or break up into a ring structure around the planet.

The origin of the two moons is not well understood. Their low albedo and carbonaceous chondrite composition have been regarded as similar to asteroids, supporting the capture theory. The unstable orbit of Phobos would seem to point towards a relatively recent capture. But both have circular orbits, near the equator, which is unusual for captured objects and the required capture dynamics are complex. Accretion early in the history of Mars is plausible, but would not account for a composition resembling asteroids rather than Mars itself, if that is confirmed.

A third possibility is the involvement of a third body or a type of impact disruption. More-recent lines of evidence for Phobos having a highly porous interior, and suggesting a composition containing mainly phyllosilicates and other minerals known from Mars, point toward an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Earth's moon. Although the VNIR spectra of the moons of Mars resemble those of outer-belt asteroids, the thermal infrared spectra of Phobos are reported to be inconsistent with chondrites of any class.

Mars may have moons smaller than  in diameter, and a dust ring is predicted to exist between Phobos and Deimos.

 Exploration 


Dozens of crewless spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars by the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, and India to study the planet's surface, climate, and geology.

, Mars is host to eleven functioning spacecraft: eight in orbit2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Mars Orbiter Mission, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, Emirates Mars Mission and Tianwen-1and three on the surface the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, the InSight lander and the Perseverance rover. The public can request images of Mars via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiWish program.

The Mars Science Laboratory, named Curiosity, launched on 26 November 2011, and reached Mars on 6 August 2012 UTC. It is larger and more advanced than the Mars Exploration Rovers, with a movement rate up to  per hour.  Experiments include a laser chemical sampler that can deduce the make-up of rocks at a distance of .  On 10 February 2013, the Curiosity rover obtained the first deep rock samples ever taken from another planetary body, using its on-board drill. The same year, it discovered that Mars's soil contains between 1.5% and 3% water by mass (albeit attached to other compounds and thus not freely accessible). Observations by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had previously revealed the possibility of flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.

On 24 September 2014, Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), reached Mars orbit. ISRO launched MOM on 5 November 2013, with the aim of analyzing the Martian atmosphere and topography. The Mars Orbiter Mission used a Hohmann transfer orbit to escape Earth's gravitational influence and catapult into a nine-month-long voyage to Mars. The mission is the first successful Asian interplanetary mission.

The European Space Agency, in collaboration with Roscosmos, launched the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander on 14 March 2016. While the Trace Gas Orbiter successfully entered Mars orbit on 19 October 2016, Schiaparelli crashed during its landing attempt.

In May 2018, NASA's InSight lander was launched, along with the twin MarCO CubeSats that flew by Mars and acted as telemetry relays during the landing. The mission arrived at Mars in November 2018.  InSight detected potential seismic activity (a "marsquake") in April 2019. 


In 2019, MAVEN spacecraft mapped high-altitude global wind patterns at Mars for the first time. It was discovered that the winds which are miles above the surface retained information about the land forms below.

 Future 


NASA launched the Mars 2020 mission on 30 July 2020.  The rover Perseverance successfully landed on the surface of Mars on 18 February 2021. The mission will cache samples for future retrieval and return of them to Earth. The current concept for the Mars sample-return mission would launch in 2026 and feature hardware built by NASA and ESA.
The European Space Agency will launch the ExoMars rover and surface platform sometime between August and October 2022.

The United Arab Emirates' Mars Hope orbiter was launched on 19 July 2020, and successfully entered orbit around Mars on 9 February 2021. The probe will conduct a global study of the Martian atmosphere. With this accomplishment, UAE became the second country, after India, to reach Mars on its first attempt.

Several plans for a human mission to Mars have been proposed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, but no human mission has yet launched. SpaceX founder Elon Musk presented a plan in September 2016 to, optimistically, launch a crewed mission to Mars in 2024 at an estimated development cost of US$10 billion, but this mission is not expected to take place before 2027. In October 2016, President Barack Obama renewed United States policy to pursue the goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s, and to continue using the International Space Station as a technology incubator in that pursuit. The NASA Authorization Act of 2017 directed NASA to get humans near or on the surface of Mars by the early 2030s.

 Astronomy on Mars 

With the presence of various orbiters, landers, and rovers, it is possible to practice astronomy from Mars. Although Mars's moon Phobos appears about one-third the angular diameter of the full moon on Earth, Deimos appears more or less star-like, looking only slightly brighter than Venus does from Earth.

Various phenomena seen from Earth have also been observed from Mars, such as meteors and auroras. The apparent sizes of the moons Phobos and Deimos are sufficiently smaller than that of the Sun; thus, their partial "eclipses" of the Sun are best considered transits (see transit of Deimos and Phobos from Mars). Transits of Mercury and Venus have been observed from Mars. A transit of Earth will be seen from Mars on 10 November 2084.

On 19 October 2014, comet Siding Spring passed extremely close to Mars, so close that the coma may have enveloped Mars. 

 Viewing 

The mean apparent magnitude of Mars is +0.71 with a standard deviation of 1.05. Because the orbit of Mars is eccentric, the magnitude at opposition from the Sun can range from about −3.0 to −1.4. The minimum brightness is magnitude +1.86 when the planet is in conjunction with the Sun. At its brightest, Mars (along with Jupiter) is second only to Venus in luminosity. Mars usually appears distinctly yellow, orange, or red. NASA's Spirit rover has taken pictures of a greenish-brown, mud-colored landscape with blue-grey rocks and patches of light red sand. When farthest away from Earth, it is more than seven times farther away than when it is closest. When least favorably positioned, it can be lost in the Sun's glare for months at a time. At its most favorable times — at 15-year or 17-year intervals, and always between late July and late September — a lot of surface detail can be seen with a telescope. Especially noticeable, even at low magnification, are the polar ice caps.

As Mars approaches opposition, it begins a period of retrograde motion, which means it will appear to move backwards in a looping motion with respect to the background stars. The duration of this retrograde motion lasts for about 72 days, and Mars reaches its peak luminosity in the middle of this motion.

 Closest approaches 
 Relative 

The point at which Mars's geocentric longitude is 180° different from the Sun's is known as opposition, which is near the time of closest approach to Earth. The time of opposition can occur as much as 8.5 days away from the closest approach. The distance at close approach varies between about  due to the planets' elliptical orbits, which causes comparable variation in angular size. The last Mars opposition occurred on 27 July 2018, at a distance of about . The next Mars opposition occurs on 13 October 2020, at a distance of about . The average time between the successive oppositions of Mars, its synodic period, is 780 days; but the number of days between the dates of successive oppositions can range from 764 to 812.

As Mars approaches opposition it begins a period of retrograde motion, which makes it appear to move backwards in a looping motion relative to the background stars. The duration of this retrograde motion is about 72 days.

 Absolute, around the present time 
Mars made its closest approach to Earth and maximum apparent brightness in nearly 60,000 years, , magnitude −2.88, on 27 August 2003, at 09:51:13 UTC. This occurred when Mars was one day from opposition and about three days from its perihelion, making it particularly easy to see from Earth. The last time it came so close is estimated to have been on 12 September 57,617 BC, the next time being in 2287. This record approach was only slightly closer than other recent close approaches. For instance, the minimum distance on 22 August 1924, was , and the minimum distance on 24 August 2208, will be .

Every 15 to 17 years, Mars comes into opposition near its perihelion. These perihelic oppositions make a closer approach to earth than other oppositions which occur every 2.1 years. Mars comes into perihelic opposition in 2003, 2018 and 2035, with 2020 and 2033 being close to perihelic opposition.

 Historical observations 

The history of observations of Mars is marked by the oppositions of Mars, when the planet is closest to Earth and hence is most easily visible, which occur every couple of years. Even more notable are the perihelic oppositions of Mars, which occur every 15 or 17 years and are distinguished because Mars is close to perihelion, making it even closer to Earth.

 Ancient and medieval observations 

The ancient Sumerians believed that Mars was Nergal, the god of war and plague. During Sumerian times, Nergal was a minor deity of little significance, but, during later times, his main cult center was the city of Nineveh. In Mesopotamian texts, Mars is referred to as the "star of judgement of the fate of the dead." The existence of Mars as a wandering object in the night sky was recorded by the ancient Egyptian astronomers and, by 1534 BCE, they were familiar with the retrograde motion of the planet. By the period of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Babylonian astronomers were making regular records of the positions of the planets and systematic observations of their behavior. For Mars, they knew that the planet made 37 synodic periods, or 42 circuits of the zodiac, every 79 years. They invented arithmetic methods for making minor corrections to the predicted positions of the planets. In Ancient Greece, the planet was known as .

In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle noted that Mars disappeared behind the Moon during an occultation, indicating that the planet was farther away. Ptolemy, a Greek living in Alexandria, attempted to address the problem of the orbital motion of Mars. Ptolemy's model and his collective work on astronomy was presented in the multi-volume collection Almagest, which became the authoritative treatise on Western astronomy for the next fourteen centuries. Literature from ancient China confirms that Mars was known by Chinese astronomers by no later than the fourth century BCE. In the East Asian cultures, Mars is traditionally referred to as the "fire star" (Chinese: ), based on the Five elements.

During the seventeenth century, Tycho Brahe measured the diurnal parallax of Mars that Johannes Kepler used to make a preliminary calculation of the relative distance to the planet. When the telescope became available, the diurnal parallax of Mars was again measured in an effort to determine the Sun-Earth distance. This was first performed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1672. The early parallax measurements were hampered by the quality of the instruments. The only occultation of Mars by Venus observed was that of 13 October 1590, seen by Michael Maestlin at Heidelberg. In 1610, Mars was viewed by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was first to see it via telescope. The first person to draw a map of Mars that displayed any terrain features was the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens.

 Martian "canals" 

By the 19th century, the resolution of telescopes reached a level sufficient for surface features to be identified. A perihelic opposition of Mars occurred on 5 September 1877. In that year, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli used a  telescope in Milan to help produce the first detailed map of Mars. These maps notably contained features he called canali, which were later shown to be an optical illusion. These canali were supposedly long, straight lines on the surface of Mars, to which he gave names of famous rivers on Earth. His term, which means "channels" or "grooves", was popularly mistranslated in English as "canals."

Influenced by the observations, the orientalist Percival Lowell founded an observatory which had  telescopes. The observatory was used for the exploration of Mars during the last good opportunity in 1894 and the following less favorable oppositions. He published several books on Mars and life on the planet, which had a great influence on the public. The canali were independently found by other astronomers, like Henri Joseph Perrotin and Louis Thollon in Nice, using one of the largest telescopes of that time.

The seasonal changes (consisting of the diminishing of the polar caps and the dark areas formed during Martian summer) in combination with the canals led to speculation about life on Mars, and it was a long-held belief that Mars contained vast seas and vegetation. The telescope never reached the resolution required to give proof to any speculations. As bigger telescopes were used, fewer long, straight canali were observed. During an observation in 1909 by Camille Flammarion with an  telescope, irregular patterns were observed, but no canali were seen.

Even in the 1960s, articles were published on Martian biology, putting aside explanations other than life for the seasonal changes on Mars. Detailed scenarios for the metabolism and chemical cycles for a functional ecosystem have been published.

 Spacecraft visitation 

Once spacecraft visited the planet during NASA's Mariner missions in the 1960s and 1970s, these concepts were radically broken. The results of the Viking life-detection experiments aided an intermission in which the hypothesis of a hostile, dead planet was generally accepted.

Mariner 9 and Viking allowed better maps of Mars to be made using the data from these missions, and another major leap forward was the Mars Global Surveyor mission, launched in 1996 and operated until late 2006, that allowed complete, extremely detailed maps of the Martian topography, magnetic field and surface minerals to be obtained. These maps are available online; for example, at Google Mars. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express continued exploring with new instruments, and supporting lander missions. NASA provides two online tools: Mars Trek, which provides visualizations of the planet using data from 50 years of exploration, and Experience Curiosity, which simulates traveling on Mars in 3-D with Curiosity.

 In culture 


Mars is named after the Roman god of war. In different cultures, Mars represents masculinity and youth. Its symbol, a circle with an arrow pointing out to the upper right, is used as a symbol for the male gender.

The many failures in Mars exploration probes resulted in a satirical counter-culture blaming the failures on an Earth-Mars "Bermuda Triangle", a "Mars Curse", or a "Great Galactic Ghoul" that feeds on Martian spacecraft.

 Intelligent "Martians" 

The fashionable idea that Mars was populated by intelligent Martians exploded in the late 19th century. Schiaparelli's "canali" observations combined with Percival Lowell's books on the subject put forward the standard notion of a planet that was a drying, cooling, dying world with ancient civilizations constructing irrigation works.


Many other observations and proclamations by notable personalities added to what has been termed "Mars Fever." In 1899, while investigating atmospheric radio noise using his receivers in his Colorado Springs lab, inventor Nikola Tesla observed repetitive signals that he later surmised might have been radio communications coming from another planet, possibly Mars. In a 1901 interview, Tesla said:

It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control. Although I could not decipher their meaning, it was impossible for me to think of them as having been entirely accidental. The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.

Tesla's theories gained support from Lord Kelvin who, while visiting the United States in 1902, was reported to have said that he thought Tesla had picked up Martian signals being sent to the United States. Kelvin "emphatically" denied this report shortly before leaving: "What I really said was that the inhabitants of Mars, if there are any, were doubtless able to see New York, particularly the glare of the electricity."

In a New York Times article in 1901, Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory, said that they had received a telegram from Lowell Observatory in Arizona that seemed to confirm that Mars was trying to communicate with Earth.

Early in December 1900, we received from Lowell Observatory in Arizona a telegram that a shaft of light had been seen to project from Mars (the Lowell observatory makes a specialty of Mars) lasting seventy minutes. I wired these facts to Europe and sent out neostyle copies through this country. The observer there is a careful, reliable man and there is no reason to doubt that the light existed. It was given as from a well-known geographical point on Mars. That was all. Now the story has gone the world over. In Europe, it is stated that I have been in communication with Mars, and all sorts of exaggerations have spring up. Whatever the light was, we have no means of knowing. Whether it had intelligence or not, no one can say. It is absolutely inexplicable.

Pickering later proposed creating a set of mirrors in Texas, intended to signal Martians.


In recent decades, the high-resolution mapping of the surface of Mars, culminating in Mars Global Surveyor, revealed no artifacts of habitation by "intelligent" life, but pseudoscientific speculation about intelligent life on Mars continues from commentators such as Richard C. Hoagland. Reminiscent of the canali controversy, these speculations are based on small scale features perceived in the spacecraft images, such as "pyramids" and the "Face on Mars." Planetary astronomer Carl Sagan wrote:

Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears.

The depiction of Mars in fiction has been stimulated by its dramatic red color and by nineteenth century scientific speculations that its surface conditions might support not just life but intelligent life. Thus originated a large number of science fiction scenarios, among which is H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, published in 1898, in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth.

Influential works included Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, in which human explorers accidentally destroy a Martian civilization, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series, C. S. Lewis' novel Out of the Silent Planet (1938), and a number of Robert A. Heinlein stories before the mid-sixties.

Jonathan Swift made reference to the moons of Mars, about 150 years before their actual discovery by Asaph Hall, detailing reasonably accurate descriptions of their orbits, in the 19th chapter of his novel Gulliver's Travels.

A comic figure of an intelligent Martian, Marvin the Martian, appeared in Haredevil Hare (1948) as a character in the Looney Tunes animated cartoons of Warner Brothers, and has continued as part of popular culture to the present.

After the Mariner and Viking spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as it really is, an apparently lifeless and canal-less world, these ideas about Mars had to be abandoned, and a vogue for accurate, realist depictions of human colonies on Mars developed, the best known of which may be Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Pseudo-scientific speculations about the Face on Mars and other enigmatic landmarks spotted by space probes have meant that ancient civilizations continue to be a popular theme in science fiction, especially in film.

 Interactive Mars map 

 See also 

 List of missions to Mars
 Mars monolith
 Outline of Mars
 Timekeeping on Mars
 Wikipedia table comparing stats of planets in the Solar System

 Notes 

 References 

 External links 


 Mars Exploration Program at NASA.gov
 Mars Trek – An integrated map browser of maps and datasets for Mars
 Google Mars and Google Mars 3D, interactive maps of the planet
 Geody Mars, mapping site that supports NASA World Wind, Celestia, and other applications
 Interactive 3D Gravity simulation of the Martian system and all the operational spacecraft in orbit around it as of the 12'th of June 2020

Images
 Mars images by NASA's Planetary Photojournal
 Mars images by NASA's Mars Exploration Program
 Mars images by Malin Space Science Systems
 HiRISE image catalog by the University of Arizona

Videos
 Rotating color globe of Mars by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
 Rotating geological globe of Mars by the United States Geological Survey
  by The Science Channel (2012, 4:31)
 Flight Into Mariner Valley by Arizona State University
 High resolution video simulation of rotating Mars by Seán Doran, showing Arabia Terra, Valles Marineris and Tharsis (see album for more)
 Mars rover captures high-resolution panorama of its home (NASA)

Cartographic resources
 Mars nomenclature and quadrangle maps with feature names by the United States Geological Survey
 Geological map of Mars by the United States Geological Survey
 Viking orbiter photomap  by Eötvös Loránd University
 Mars Global Surveyor topographical map by Eötvös Loránd University