Mars (First Books - The Solar System Series)

By Elaine Landau

Book Overview

- Clean new design for easy readability and comprehension- Updated text presented in a lively, continuous narrative- New center-spread sidebar feature presenting material in a fun, creative way-... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0531157733
• ISBN13: 9780531157732
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: Franklin Watts
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.3" x 7.0"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

This is a fascinating book any budding astronomer will love!

Mars, the Red Planet is probably the planet that holds the most fascination for people. So many wild stories have been written about it and little men from Mars have crept into a lot of science fiction tales. Some things are true, while others are just figments of our imagination. In this book there are two sentences in the front of the book. Only one is true and you'll have to read the book to find out which is which. The surface of Mars is somewhat similar to that of Earth's, but there are some major differences. For example, the "average surface temperature on Mars is -81 F!" Another difference is that the gravity on Mars is much weaker. This planet is the fourth from the sun, the seventh largest in our solar system and is 4,222 miles in diameter. Time wise its day is approximately 43 minutes longer than Earth's and their year is 687 days, "almost twice as long as a year on Earth." Meteorites have apparently hit Mars many times and it is peppered with craters, the largest of which "could hold the whole state of Texas!" Texas has storms, but Mars has giants sand storms that would be some difficult to survive in! The atmosphere, made up mostly carbon dioxide, would make this planet inhabitable for human beings. You will also learn about Deimos and Phobos, Mars's odd shaped moons and the many missions we have sent and are planning to send to the planet. This book is fascinating and any space fanatic or budding astronomer will love it. The pages are filled with full color photographs, informative sidebars, interesting fun facts scattered throughout its pages, a time line, a page of statistics, important words, an index and additional recommended book and web sites. On the 1976 Viking 1 space mission a photograph of a rock formation "looked like a human face." This amazing photograph is in this book!