Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Mars is the ___________ planet from the Sun.

Answer: fourth

In order, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. A neat, easy way to remember the order is this sentence: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles.

2. Mars has two satellites. Their names are:

Answer: Phobos and Deimos

Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror) were named after the horses that pulled the chariot of the Greek god Ares (Roman equivalent: Mars). Miranda and Titania are satellites of Uranus. Ganymede and Callisto are satellites of Jupiter. Pallas and Vesta are asteroids.

3. Mars gets its red color from what?

Answer: oxidation

The red color originates from minerals that contain iron oxides, which are reddish in color.

4. Olympus Mons is located in the southern hemisphere.

Answer: False

Olympus Mons is located at about 18 degrees North and 133 degrees West, placing it in the northern hemisphere. Although the volcano is nearly 27 km high, it is over 20 times wider than it is tall. An interesting fact about Mars' northern hemisphere is that it is much flatter than its southern hemisphere.

5. At close approach (to Earth), the large surface feature known as Syrtis Major can be seen in moderately sized telescopes.

Answer: True

Syrtis Major is the darkest marking on the red planet. It is located in the northern hemisphere.

6. Who discovered the two satellites of Mars?

Answer: Asaph Hall

Asaph Hall discovered the two small satellites in 1877 at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC.

7. The two satellites of Mars are very large.

Answer: False

Mars is about 4,200 miles in diameter; the two satellites are only about 15 and 8 miles in diameter.

8. What do the names of the Martian satellites mean?

Answer: Fear and panic

Phobos (fear) is 9,377 km from Mars and Deimos (panic) is 23,436 km from Mars. Both satellites are roughly potato-shaped.

9. Mars' axial tilt is _________ degrees.

Answer: 25.19

Mars' axial tilt is close to Earth's 23.5 degrees. Since Mars takes about twice as long to orbit the Sun, Mars' seasons are then twice as long as Earth's!

10. What is the gravity of Mars (compared to Earth)?

Answer: .379 that of Earth

This means that launching a spaceship from Mars is less demanding than launching one from the Earth.

11. What was the name of the mission that landed spacecraft on Mars in the 70's?

Answer: Viking

Viking landed two landers in 1976; both were successful. Pathfinder was the Mars mission in 1997, and sucessfully landed a lander on Mars. Mariner sent several missions to Mars, Mariner 4 passed within 9844 kilometers of Mars on July 14, 1965 and Mariner 6 & 7 were identical spacecraft launched in 1969, and their missions were entirely devoted to the flyby study of Mars. Mariner 8 fell into the Atlantic Ocean, while its sister spacecraft Mariner 9 exceeded its mission, returning over 7,000 images covering about 80 percent of Mars. Pioneer went to Jupiter and Saturn in the late 70's. Pioneer 10 is headed to Aldebaran, a star in the constellation Taurus some 68 light years away.

It will take about 2 million years to get there! Pioneer 10 will take 4 million years to get to a star in the constellation of Aquila!

12. Olympus Mons is wider than the state of Arizona's east-west width.

Answer: True

Not only is it wider than Arizona, but it is also taller than the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands. Olympus Mons is so wide that if you were to stand on the top of it, you would only be able to see Olympus Mons! It's that huge!

13. Mars' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide.

Answer: True

The rest is mainly nitrogen and argon. Mars' atmosphere is very thin.
The average temperature on Mars is -63 degrees Celsius.

14. The dust storms on Mars are extremely mild.

Answer: False

They kick up several hundred mile per hour winds and can obscure the entire planet for months. When Mariner 9 visited Mars in 1971/72, the spacecraft had to wait several months for the dust storms to settle to start its mission. Fortunately, the spacecraft was programmable.

15. Arizona's Grand Canyon is longer than Mars' Valles Marineris.

Answer: False

Not even close! Vallis Marineris is actually longer than the entire United States is wide, and is four times as deep as the Grand Canyon.

16. The temperature at the poles of Mars is about ___________.

Answer: 190 degrees F. below zero

At the equator, the average temperature ranges from 32 degrees F. in the afternoon to around 135 degrees F. below zero just before sunrise. No global warming on Mars!

17. If you weighed 150 pounds on Earth, how much would you weigh on Mars?

Answer: 57 pounds

On planets with more mass than the Earth, you would feel heavier (weigh more), and on planets with less mass (like Mars) you'd feel lighter (weigh less). Your mass stays the same, but your weight is how much force gravity exerts on you, and that changes according to the mass of the planet!

18. Mars' diameter is ______ miles.

Answer: 4,200

Mars is about half the diameter of the Earth, yet it has the largest volcano known in the Solar System (Olympus Mons) and the longest canyon (Vallis Marinaris).

19. Lacus Solis, a feature on Mars is sometimes called the "Eye of Mars".

Answer: True

The translation is "Lake of the Sun." Lacus Solis is located in the southern hemisphere at 95 degrees west and 30 degrees south.

20. Mariner 4 flew by Mars in 1964-5 and took photographs.

Answer: True

Mariners 6 and 7 took about 200 pictures total.