Welcome to the planet Mars! Mars is the 4th planet from the Sun and is located between the planets, Earth and Jupiter. It is the second smallest planet in the solar system and is sometimes called the Red Planet because of its reddish rusty colour.

Mars has a thin atmosphere which makes the planet cold and dry. On the Mars surface, there are no lakes, rivers or oceans and is made up of mostly carbon dioxide, nitrogen and argon.

Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos which were discovered in 1877 by the astronomer Asaph Hall.

Mars has a lower gravity than Earth which means that if you weigh 70 kg on Earth, you would only weigh 27 kg on Mars!

Although nobody has yet been to Mars, many spacecrafts and probes have already been sent to take pictures, take measurements and carry out experiments.

Mars is also famous for having mountains, places of interest and other topography. Mount Olympus is the highest mountain on Mars with 21 000 meters of elevation – higher than Mt. Everest on Earth.

So there you have it, many exciting facts about our neighbour planet Mars!