• Question: is mars a plaint

    Asked by 16stanleymat5thew on 26 Jan 2017.
    • Photo: Jemma Rowlandson

      Jemma Rowlandson answered on 26 Jan 2017:

      Yes, Mars is a planet! 🙂 It is the fourth planet from the Sun, and is our closest neighbour at only 33 million miles away! Scientists at NASA actually made a really exciting discovery last year, that there is liquid water on Mars. Liquid water is always exciting because it is essential for life. It isn’t the liquid water that we see everyday though, the liquid water they found on Mars was in dark streaks in special places on the planets surface. The water was also VERY salty. It was actually the salt which caused the water to be liquid in the first place, without it the water would freeze.

    • Photo: Craig Fisher

      Craig Fisher answered on 27 Jan 2017:

      Yes, Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and Earth’s third nearest neighbour after the Moon and Venus. It’s named after Mars, the Roman god of war, but it is also known as the Red Planet because its surface appears red (from lots of iron oxide in its soil). If you go outside on a clear night away from town and city lights, you can sometimes see it with the naked eye – it should be identifiable by its reddish tinge compared to the other stars. The best time is said to be late summer (around August or September).

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