THE RED PLANET MARS
About Mars
• Mars is the fourth planet from the sun.
• Mars’ reddish color is quite visible to the naked eye.
This color is due to the presence of iron oxide dust.
• Befitting the red planet's bloody color, the Romans named it after their god of war.
• The red planet is home to both the highest mountain and the deepest, longest valley
in the solar system.
The moons of Mars
The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, were discovered by American
astronomer Asaph Hall over the course of a week in 1877.
• Olympus Mons is the
largest volcano in the
solar system. The
massive Martian
mountain towers high
above the surrounding
plains of the red
planet, and may be
biding its time until
the next eruption.
INDIA’s MISSION
India will prove its astronomical pr0wess again with the Mars Orbiter Mission.
ISRO said the spacecraft has completed 95 per cent of its heliocentric journey towards
Mars and was less than "four million kilometres" away from it . The Mars mission is
called Mangalyan.
•PSLV-C25, in its twenty fifth flight, successfully launches Mars Orbiter Mission Spacecraft from SDSC SHAR
Sriharikota
•Dated 05-11-2013
•The second Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM-2) of India's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft was successfully
performed on June 11, 2014 at 1630 hrs IST. TCM-2 was performed by firing the spacecraft’s 22 Newton
thrusters for a duration of 16 seconds.
•At present, the radio distance between the Spacecraft and the Earth is 102 million km. A radio signal from the
Earth to the Spacecraft now takes about 340 seconds. The spacecraft so far has traveled a distance of 466
million km as part of its total Journey of 680 million km.
•ISRO is continuously monitoring Mars Orbiter Spacecraft using Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN). The
spacecraft and its five scientific instruments are in good health
•Dated 12-06-2014
The Mars Curiosity Rover has been busy
snapping photos (selfies too) of Mars and
found something… strange. A small, shiny,
metal-looking “protuberance” sticking out
from the red planet. Is it some secret lever to
open up a world where Martians exist? Or
some random space junk? We don’t know.
Chennai: India's ambitious Mars Orbiter Mission was just nine
million kilometres away from the red planet, Indian Space
Research Organisation said today.
"Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is just nine million km away
from Mars and 189 million kilometres away from the Earth. 33
more days to MARS," ISRO said in its social networking site.
Early this month, ISRO scientists ruled out Trajectory
Correction Manoeuvre originally planned for August as the
spacecraft was on track.
NASA has narrowed down to four potential landing sites for
its next mission to Mars in 2016, aimed at studying the red
planet's interior.
The stationary Interior Exploration Using Seismic
Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander
is scheduled to launch in March 2016 and land on Mars six
months later.
The mission will touch down at one of four sites selected in
August from a field of 22 candidates. All four semi-finalist
spots lie near each other on an equatorial plain in an area of
Mars called Elysium Planitia, NASA said.
Over 1,000 aspirants, including 62 from
India, have been shortlisted for an
ambitious private mission to send four
men and women on a one-way trip to Mars
in 2024 to establish a permanent colony on
the red planet.