MARS; Average Distance from Sun: 93 million miles: 142 million miles: Average Speed in Orbiting ...

What Is Mars Like? Mars is very cold. The average temperature on Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit -- way below freezing! Its surface is rocky, with canyons, volcanoes, dry lake beds and craters all over it. Red dust covers most of its surface. Mars has clouds and wind just like Earth. Sometimes the wind blows the red dust into a dust storm.

Physical characteristics. Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth, with a surface area only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity.

When the solar system settled into its current layout about 4.5 billion years ago, Mars formed when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become the fourth planet from the Sun. Mars is about half the size of Earth, and like its fellow terrestrial planets, it has a central core, a rocky mantle, and a solid crust.

It's red because of rusty iron in the ground. Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons, and weather. It has a very thin atmosphere made of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon. There are signs of ancient floods on Mars, but now water mostly exists in icy dirt and thin clouds.

Mars Characteristics Size. Mars is also smaller than Earth. Its diameter at the equator is 6,794 kilometres, while Earth’s is 12,756... Mass & Gravity. Mars is an Earth-like planet in many ways, but it does vary in size and gravitational pull. From... Rotation. The length of a Mars day is slightly ...

Mars’ and Earth’s physical features and processes may be similar because they may share similar origins. One theory assumes that some planets in our solar system formed from the debris of an exploded star that was once in the location of the Sun. Different agents of erosion (wind, water, and ice) produce different landforms.