50 Mars Fun Facts For Kids – Blast off to the Red Planet with These Out of the World Facts

Jump to a Section:

• The Basics of the Red Planet
• Amazing Landmarks
• Atmosphere and Weather
• The Two Potato Moons
• Robots and Exploration
• The Big Mysteries

The Basics of the Red Planet

1. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and is often called the “Red Planet.”
2. The planet gets its red color from iron oxide, which is the same mineral that makes old metal tools turn rusty.
3. Mars is the second smallest planet in our solar system; only Mercury is smaller.
4. You could fit about six planets the size of Mars inside the Earth.
5. Mars is named after the Roman god of war because its red color reminded people of blood.
6. The month of March is named after the planet Mars.
7. A day on Mars is called a “sol” and lasts about 24 hours and 37 minutes.
8. Because it is further from the Sun, a year on Mars is 687 Earth days long—almost twice as long as ours!
9. Mars has four seasons just like Earth, but they last much longer because of the longer year.
10. The gravity on Mars is only 38% of Earth’s, meaning you could jump three times higher there than you can at home.

Amazing Landmarks

11. Mars is home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the entire solar system.
12. Olympus Mons is three times taller than Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth.
13. Valles Marineris is a giant canyon on Mars that is 10 times longer and 4 times deeper than the Grand Canyon.
14. If Valles Marineris were on Earth, it would stretch all the way from New York to Los Angeles.
15. Mars has polar ice caps at its north and south poles, just like Earth.
16. The Martian ice caps are made of a mix of water ice and “dry ice” (frozen carbon dioxide).
17. The Hellas Planitia is a massive impact crater on Mars that is over 4 miles deep.
18. Nearly 40% of the Martian surface is covered by one giant crater called the Borealis Basin.
19. Scientists have found dried-up riverbeds and lakebeds, suggesting Mars once had lots of liquid water.
20. There are giant “dust devils” on Mars that look like small tornadoes spinning across the desert.

Atmosphere and Weather

21. The atmosphere on Mars is very thin—about 100 times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere.
22. The air is mostly made of carbon dioxide (95%), with very little oxygen for humans to breathe.
23. Because the air is so thin, it doesn’t trap heat well, making Mars a very cold desert.
24. The average temperature on Mars is about -81 degrees Fahrenheit (-63°C).
25. At the Martian equator, a summer day might reach a comfortable 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20°C).
26. Mars has the largest dust storms in the solar system, which can sometimes cover the entire planet for months.
27. The sky on Mars usually looks pinkish-red during the day because of all the dust in the air.
28. Sunsets on Mars are actually blue because the fine dust scatters blue light toward your eyes.
29. You would need a pressurized spacesuit to survive on Mars because the air pressure is too low for our bodies.
30. There is no ozone layer on Mars, so the Sun’s radiation is much stronger than it is on Earth.

The Two Potato Moons

31. Mars has two small moons named Phobos and Deimos.
32. The moons are not round like ours; they are lumpy and shaped like potatoes.
33. Phobos is the larger moon and orbits incredibly close to the planet’s surface.
34. Deimos is the smaller moon and takes about 30 hours to orbit Mars once.
35. Some scientists think the moons are actually captured asteroids that got pulled in by Mars’ gravity.
36. In about 50 million years, Phobos will likely crash into Mars or break apart into a ring.

Robots and Exploration

37. No human has ever set foot on Mars, but we have sent many robots to explore it for us.
38. The Viking 1 and 2 landers were the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars in 1976.
39. Sojourner was the first wheeled rover to drive on Mars, arriving in 1997.
40. The rover Opportunity was only supposed to last 90 days but kept working for 14 years!
41. Curiosity, a car-sized rover, landed in 2012 and uses a laser to vaporize rocks so it can see what they are made of.
42. The Perseverance rover landed in 2021 and is currently collecting rock samples for return to Earth.
43. Mars is the only planet where humans have successfully flown a helicopter called Ingenuity.
44. Ingenuity was only meant to fly 5 times but completed 72 flights before its mission ended in 2024.
45. Several countries, including the USA, China, India, and the UAE, have successfully sent missions to Mars.
46. It takes about seven to nine months for a spacecraft to travel from Earth to Mars.
47. Because Mars and Earth move, we can only launch missions to Mars every 26 months when they are lined up.
48. NASA hopes to send the first humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s.

The Big Mysteries

49. Scientists are searching for microbes (tiny living things) that might have lived on Mars billions of years ago.
50. Pieces of Mars have actually landed on Earth as meteorites after being knocked off the planet by space rocks!