MARS
At
first glance Mars seems to be rather like Earth. It has a
twenty-four hour day, ice caps at the poles, drifting clouds,
large dust storms and seasonal patterns on its surface. In the
past some astronomers thought they saw a network of canals on the
surface that might have been built by intelligent life forms.
Today we
know much more about Mars, and life on its surface seems very
unlikely. The ice caps are mostly frozen carbon dioxide. The
atmosphere is very thin and unbreathable. The clouds don’t last
long, there is no surface water, and no network of canals. But
there are now a few small canals or trenches, built by intelligent
creatures.
These marks
were made by spacecraft launched and directed from the planet
earth. Samples from these trenches, analysed on Mars, found
nothing resembling a living organism.
Mars is
still, however, a fascinating planet. It has hundreds of craters
and large canyons bigger than any you would find on earth. There
are extinct volcanoes. The highest called Olympus Mons is about
twenty-five kilometres high and is by far the largest found in the
Solar System. The surface of the planet also seems to have been
eroded by water, though no rains has fallen on Mars for millions of
years.
Mars also has two of the smallest moons in the
Solar System. These are called Phobos and Deimos. They are each
only about twenty kilometres across, and are so small that they
are hard to see except with a large telescope. They both have
irregular shapes, a little like two potatoes, and are heavily
pitted with craters.
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