MARS
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. It orbits the sun at a span of about 140 million miles. Looking up at Mars from Earth the planet Mars appears fiery red. The surface is almost exactly the same as the dry land on Earth. The time it takes Mars to rotate once on its axis is about half on hour longer than an Earth day. Phobos and Deimos are the names of the two moons of Mars. The atmosphere is cooler and drier than it was in the mid 1970's.Mars appears as a fairly bright, star-like object in the night sky of Earth. It moves through Earth's sky fairly rapidly, on a time scale of months. Because of the relative movements of Earth and Mars around the Sun, Mars appears to move backward in the sky for a short time around opposition, when the two planets are closest. As Mars and Earth orbit the Sun, the distance between them varies from about 75 million km (about 47 million mi.) at opposition to about 375 million km (about 233 million mi.) when the planets are on opposite sides of the Sun. This change in distance causes the apparent size of Mars to vary by a factor of 5 and its brightness to vary by a factor of 25. On February 25, 1995, Mars was at a distance of approximately 103 million kilometers (65 million miles) from
In the last thirty years, our knowledge of Mars has only come from spacecraft missions and by studying Martian meteorites found on Earth. Some of the most interesting discoveries have been the liquid water, and maybe even life, were possibly present on Mars' surface. The central focus of NASA's Mars Surveyor Program missions is the study of water on Mars, its availability for life, its role in the weather and climate, and its usefulness as a resource for future human exploration. The next lander mission to Mars is the Polar Lander, which will focus primarily on Mars' climate and water. Also during this exploration, other scientific instruments will study water and carbon dioxide at the landing site, and how the Mars Polar Lander will add to our understanding of Mars. Encarta 99, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. Encarta Learning Center, http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?mod=1&ti=03B16000&page=2 Additional analysis of the topography and gravity indicates that the northern lowlands were a likely zone of high heat flow early in Martian history, reflecting energetic convection of the Martian interior. This rapid heat loss could have released gases trapped within the planet to the atmosphere and underground ice or water to the surface, helping to produce a warmer, wetter climate than present on Mars today. Mars surface heats to about -22 in the summer and about -125 at the South Pole in the winter. As the cold air from the South Pole meets with the warm air from the equator, winds gusting to more than 100 miles an hour lift debris from the Mars surface into the atmosphere. Creating darkness over the land, flying debris changes the land and uncovers new characterizations of Mars. The heavy winds continue, until the sun is blocked out and the temperatures begin to lower, the fog then slowly begins to disappear. Throughout world history, humans are consistently compelled to discover new frontiers. The human exploration of the space frontier has begun. Robotic missions and new technologies are the first steps toward the expansion of human knowledge
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1398
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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