Mars:

Earth’s
little
brother
What are the similarities and differences you notice?
Mars’s axis is tilted at 25 deg. What are
seasons on Mars like?
Mars’s axis tilt changes dramatically. What
happens when the tilt is less/more?
Artist’s depiction of an ‘icy Mars’
Do the Earth and Mars have similar interiors?
Why?

How do we even know what’s inside a planet?

 Atmospheres: Are they similar?
Why?

Constituents:

Nitrogen: 78% Carbon Doxide: 95.%

Oxygen: 21 % Nitrogen: 3%
Argon: 0.9% Argon: 2%
Water: > 1% Oxygen: 0.1%
Carbon Doxide: 0.002% Water: > 0.03%
Is there water on Mars? Why or why not?
Is there water on Mars? Why or why not?

Mars’s south pole

Is there water on Mars? Why or why not?
 Phase Diagram of Water

Partial Pressure of Water

Earth

Mars

Temperature
Mars or Earth?
 Mars or Earth?

Columbia Hills, Mars

Atacama Desert, Columbia Hills, Mars

Mars or Earth?
 Mars or Earth?

Kilauea Volcanoe, Hawaii Olympus Mons, Mars

Mars or Earth?
 Mars or Earth?

Dubai, UAE Endurance Crater, Mars

What is the evidence for past water on Mars?
Mars or Earth?
 Mars or Earth?

Djado Plateau, Niger Valles Marineris,

Mars
Mars or
Earth?
 Mars or
Earth?

Holden Crater NE, Lena Delta,

Mars or
Earth?
 Yemen

Mars or
Earth?

Mars
Mars or
Earth?
Mars or
Earth?

Niger
Mars
Seven minutes of terror

Curiosity descent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZX5GRPnd4U

Google Mars
 Mars: Take-away messages
•Although smaller than Earth, Mars and Earth are similar
in many ways.
•Mars and Earth have similar interiors, although Mars has
no liquid outer core, and so no magnetic field.
•Mars geology is/was formed by cratering, volcanism,
tectonics and erosion by wind AND WATER!
•(Plate tectonics doesn’t seem to have been important)
•Mars’s atmosphere is very different from Earth’s - lower
mass, and full of CO2.
•Mars’s small atmosphere and low temperature makes
liquid water unstable at its surface (at least right now).
Percival Lowell’s Mars
Lowell’s Map of Mar
published in 1895
Viking’s Mars
1976
Viking’s Mars
1976