Background information on Mars

Geography

Although Mars is a smaller planet – with a diameter approximately half that of the Earth - we now know that the scale of the Martian landscape makes Mount Everest and the Grand Canon fade in comparison.

Mars has the highest volcano in our solar system, Olympus Mons, which rises 25 kilometres above the surrounding terrain: Mount Everest measures only one third that size. Olympus Mons is located on the western edge of another impressive structure, the Tharsis Rise, a 4000 kilometre wide region that extends to a maximum elevation of 10 kilometres.

Starting at the eastern flanks of the Tharsis Rise, Valles Marineris is located approximately along the equator. It is a 4000 kilometre long canyon in the Martian crust (more than one-fifth of the planet’s diameter), up to 600 kilometres wide and 7 kilometres deep. The Grand Canyon is just 450 kilometres long, up to 29 kilometres wide and 1.6 kilometres deep. Another structure, located in the southern hemisphere is the Hellas Basin, an enormous impact crater measuring 2300 kilometres in diameter with a depth of 9 kilometres. Most notable are the general differences regarding elevation and surface structure of the northern and southern hemisphere. The northern hemisphere is rather level, young in age and shows an average elevation of 6 kilometres below the older, jagged highlands of the southern hemisphere.

Water and Life

Three decades of space research revealed that Mars is a cool and arid planet with a thin atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide. While this is only the impression of Mars today, there where different conditions in the early history of the planet (3.8 billion years ago). Mars could have been a temperate and humid planet in the past.

If liquid water existed on Mars, is there a chance that life developed on this planet? The more we know regarding the origin of life on our planet, the bigger the possibility of finding life on other planets. Within a short time on Earth, microorganisms developed in very inhospitable areas, where many people believed that life could not exist.

Apparently, a source of energy and water is the only prerequisite for the development of life in those regions. Liquid water could have once been present on Mars and like Earth, it receives direct sunlight and has its own internal energy source. Taking all this into account, the chances are quite high that, at least for some time, life existed on Mars.

An Overview of Mars