Diameter: 6792 km
SMA: 1.52368 AU
Period: 1.8821 years
Eccentricity: 0.093315
Rotation: 1.02596 days
Inclination: 1.9°
Axial tilt: 25.19°

Mass: 6.4171x10²⁴kg
Density: 3933 kg/m³
Gravitation: 3.71 m/s²
Escape velocity: 5.03 m/s
Orbit velocity: 24.13 km/s (mean)

Moons: 2
95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon
basaltic rock and altered materials

Though details of Mars' surface are difficult to see from Earth, telescope observations show seasonally changing features and white patches at the poles. For decades, people speculated that bright and dark areas on Mars were patches of vegetation, Mars was a likely place for advanced life forms, and water might exist in the polar caps. When the Mariner 4 spacecraft flew by Mars in 1965, photographs of a bleak, cratered surface shocked many - Mars seemed to be a dead planet. Later missions, however, showed that Mars is a complex planet and holds many mysteries yet to be solved. Chief among them is whether Mars ever had the right conditions to support small life forms called microbes.

Mars is a rocky body about half the size of Earth. As with the other terrestrial planets - Mercury, Venus, and Earth - volcanoes, impact craters, crustal movement, and atmospheric conditions such as dust storms have altered the surface of Mars.