Terence McCormick

10-20-15

How are Mars and Earth alike?

Have you ever wondered how similar Earth and Mars were? Well i most
certainly have. Mars and Earth were made at around the same time as each
other: 4.6 billion years ago. They both share certain traits like mountains,
canyons (Which were said to have been made from rivers), and ice caps. There
is a major size difference between the two though. Mars is a lot smaller than
Earth. Earth is almost 2x bigger than Mars! Earth’s equatorial radius is 3,963
miles, while Mars is a tiny 2,111 miles. As you can see, there is a major size
difference between the two. Some people might not know it, but Mars has an
atmosphere, but not a great as the Earth’s is. Earth’s atmosphere is made up of
mainly oxygen and nitrogen (21% oxygen and 77% nitrogen). Mars’ atmosphere
is very harsh and not as welcoming as our atmosphere. Mars’ is made up pretty
much just carbon dioxide, which is poisonous to us humans, and other gasses
like nitrogen and oxygen (Yes, oxygen). Mars also has landmarks like mountains
and canyons. The canyons were said to have been made by water. The deepest
canyon on Mars is about 5 miles deep, while the grand canyon is only 1 mile
deep. If we ever wanted to live on Mars, we would have to not only make an
atmosphere that we can breath in, but raise the temperature there. It is about -63
degrees C. There have been some idea’s on how to make it warmer. For
example, Elon Musk said that we should nuke the planet to raise the temperature
to at least living conditions because the planet is already riddled with radiation
from the weak atmosphere causing the sun’s radiation to cover the planet. The
reason why we don’t care about other planets as much as mars i because Mars
has the biggest chance we have at finding other life. Mars has water, an
atmosphere and we also have a rover on it. Other planets such as Jupiter are
made up of gas and have a almost solid core. There is no chance that any life
could be living on those planets. We believe that a planet need water, an
atmosphere and reasonable temperature’s to sustain life.