The Mars Quiz

Our home, Earth, is the third planet from the Sun. Mars, its neighbor, is in the fourth position, at a fluctuating distance of between 128 million and 150 million miles from the Sun.

We're sorry if you were tripped up by "Greek," but Greek and Roman aren't exactly the same mythologies. Same pantheon (mostly), but different names. In the Greek tradition, the god of war's name is Ares. This is what the Greeks call the planet, btw.

To the naked eye, Mars appears as a reddish star of considerable brightness. This makes it easy to spot Mars, and gives the planet its nickname, which is also the title of more than one science-fiction book and movie.

Mars has iron-rich soil. And, as on Earth, iron oxide is reddish in color (think of rust). Martian soil has also been found to be high in perchlorate, a salt that is dangerous to human health. This will be one of many considerations in attempts to colonize Mars.

One of the most famous examples of this adjective form is Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles." This is a collection of his pulp stories from the 1940s that involved Earth's colonization of Mars and the conflicts with the Martians who already live there.

Mars is a smaller planet than Earth, but it is blessed with twice the number of moons. Their origin is not known, but one theory is that both are asteroids that were drawn into Mars's gravitational pull.

"Phobos" means "fear" and "deimos" means "dread" in the Greek language. In other words, these are appropriate companions for war, as wherever war goes, these emotions follow along in its wake.

The first four planets in the solar system are terrestrial planets, meaning they are made of solid geologic material. The other, outer planets are gaseous. There is no "aquatic" or "plasma-based" category, although those are the other two states of matter.

This is one significant barrier to Mars colonization. Atmospheric pressure on Mars is not uniform, but at its densest, it is equal to an elevation of 115,000 feet on Earth. For comparison, Mt. Everest is only 26,000 feet, and the air there is too thin for all but the most well-adapted, fit climbers.

While carbon dioxide is vital to biological processes, a nearly entire carbon dioxide atmosphere is not conducive to life. In comparison, Earth's atmosphere is about 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen, with trace gases making up the rest.

Mars is about half the size of Earth. The only smaller planet in the Solar System is Mercury. The planet's composition is also less dense than that of Earth. Mars, we hate to say it, but you lack substance!

Astronomers have long known about the ice caps, which are visible through powerful telescopes. More recently, researchers have learned that there is water vapor in Mars' atmosphere (in trace amounts), and water ice is buried under Martian soil.

It's not surprising, given that Mars' atmosphere is 96 percent carbon dioxide, this is also part of the planet's ice caps. Perchlorate is a large component of Martian soil, as noted in another question.

Technically, it's 38 percent that of its neighbor. This is a result of Mars' lower density. (Size, in terms of diameter, doesn't matter. Gravity, which is one of the four universal forces, corresponds to mass, not size.

Most of the hype arose from a mistranslation. An Italian astronomer noted the presence of "grooves" on the planet's surface, but the Italian word "canali" led English-speakers to believe these were deliberately-dug canals. Hence, a society advanced enough for engineering!

The "dust devil" answer isn't far off. The frequent Martian dust storms, plus atmospheric turbulence on Earth that affected telescope use, created the illusion of dark bands/roads/grooves on Mars' surface. No such feature has been found by Mars landers.

Fun fact: Both the Giovannis are related to famous fashion designers. Cassini's descendant, Oleg Cassini, dressed first lady Jackie Kennedy. Meanwhile, Schiaparelli was related to Elsa Schiparelli, known for her colorful, boundary-pushing designs. Giovanni Schiaparelli was the namesake of a 2016 Mars probe launched by the European Space Agency.

The Mariners did flybys and orbits, beginning in the late 1960s. The first U.S. lander was a Viking craft. Later came the Opportunity rover, and Curiosity is still operational, as of the writing of this quiz.

Mons Olympus is not only the tallest peak on Mars, it is the second-tallest mountain in the Solar System. Fun fact: the tallest mountain is not on any of the planets, but on the major asteroid Vesta, in the asteroid belt.

Mars' Olympus Mons is 22 kilometers tall, or 72,000 feet. Mount Everest, in comparison, is 26,000 feet tall. It is a volcano, and a feature seen by astronomers, and recognized as a mountain, since the early 19th century.

Marvin originally had no name; he was just referred to as a spaceship commander. His uniform is a homage to the Roman god Mars: It's a Roman style helmet and one-piece garment with a skirt. Fetching!

China's Yinghuo-1 did not achieve escape velocity, and Japan's Nozomi failed to reach Mars due to electrical problems in this system. Russia has had successful missions as part of the former Soviet Union, and once with the European Space Agency. India has sent up a functional Mars orbiter.

Elon Musk (in case you've been living under a rock) is a South African-born inventor and businessman. His SpaceX corporation has been a leader in rocketry, with a number of firsts to its name.

Earth does not suffer from this problem because of its rich atmosphere, which both slows down meteors and causes them to burn up and disintegrate. Mars has a much thinner atmosphere, making it comparable to Earth's moon, which has none.

Martian missions have had a relatively high failure rate, and this is true across the board. In addition to USA's NASA, countries that have sought to explore Mars via flyby, orbit or landing include Russia, China, Japan, India and the European Space Agency, all of wheich have lost craft or experienced failures to even launch.

The Soviet Union got off to a strong start in what the United States came to call "the Space Race." This includes ambitious plans to go to Mars. However, it was NASA which first made a successful flyby of Mars, with the Mariner 4 craft.

The Opportunity rover exceeded everyone's expectations for it. Initially intended to function for 8,100 days on the surface of Mars, it operated for 459,990 days, more than 55 times the length of its planned mission. Kudos!

It might not be accurate to call 1967's "Mars Needs Women!" a cult classic, but it certainly has all the hallmarks: a low budget, silly dialogue, and (our favorite) a go-go dancer character named "Bubbles" Cash. Who could ask for anything more?

This formation on a hill in the Cydonia region is widely considered to be a trick of light and shadow, as photos taken from different angles do not show anything like a face. Still, some people claimed it as evidence for an advanced civilization, who created it as a way to communicate with extra-Martian observers. (In other news: Early Etruscans deliberately shaped Italy like a boot, so that aliens would know that humans had legs.)

Of course, color is a function of light; even Earth's blue sky shifts from bright blue to pale blue to almost white in places. Likewise, Mars' sky has described as "tawny" or golden, and it can be pinkish when dust storms throw up a lot of iron-rich soil particles.

Compared to storms on Earth, whether of dust, sand or water, this is an amazing phenomenon. But astronomic observations have shown that all of Mars becomes darker and more reddish in color during these dust storms, meaning that they encompass virtually the entire planet.

This craft was a joint project between the UK and the European Space Agency, which provides rocketry and launch services for member nations. The Beagle was named after Charles Darwin's ship. It was launched in 2003; unfortunately, contact was lost after landing.

H.G. Wells was a writer who worked in a number of genres, but he's best known for his science fiction. "War of the Worlds," about a clash between Earth and Mars, has been made into a movie more than once. The 2005 adaptation, with Tom Cruise, scrapped the Martian angle, probably due to current knowledge about life on Mars (or, rather, the lack thereof).

Hall made this discovery in 1877, centuries after Galileo made note of the moons of Jupiter. Why such a long delay? Well, remember that Mars is the second-smallest planet, and its moons are even smaller. A powerful telescope was required, despite Mars' proximity to the Earth.

That sounds really optimistic to us, but who are we to contradict the man who launched a Tesla roadster into solar orbit? Musk estimates that a Mars tourism program will cost about $10 billion to develop. No word on how much a ticket will cost.