MARS is called the Red Planet. It is red when we see it in the sky, a brilliant, starlike object that is brighter than any other "star" except Venus. It is made of rock but the rock contains lots of rusted iron which makes it look red. Even the atmosphere is a pinkish red, colored by tiny dust particles thrown high in the thin air by frequent wind storms. Space probes found no canals, and no water, nor signs of life, and no Martians. It is only a barren desert planet with craters.

The probes did discover some amazing features on Mars. One is the largest and tallest mountain in the entire solar system, the colossal volcano know as Olympus Mons.

Mars has a very thin atmosphere made mostly of carbon dioxide. It is not thick enough to trap the sun’s heat, so the planet is very cold. It gets so cold at the poles in winter that the air itself is frozen and coats the ground with white carbon dioxide "snow".

If you were a space explorer visiting the planet, you would find it easy to move about. You would weigh less than half as much as you do on Earth! This is because Mars is so small. The pull of gravity is much less than the pull of gravity on Earth.