Top 10 cool Mars facts

It's Red Planet day so what better time to celebrate all that is wonderful about the 4th planet from the sun...

• Mars is known as the Red Planet because it's covered in dust and rocks made from iron oxide (rust!)
• Mars is home to the largest mountain in the solar system - Olympus Mons. It's a dormant volcano which is 16 miles high and 600 km across - a whopping 3 times taller than Everest.
• Mars has seasons just like Earth because it is also tilted on its axis
• Mars is a terrestrial planet which means it's covered in rock unlike the gas and ice giants
• The gravity on Mars is a lot less than on Earth so you'd be a champion jumper there.
• Even though the Earth is about twice the size of Mars, they both have about the same amount of land. This is because most of Earth is covered by water. 
• There's not a lot of oxygen in the Martian atmosphere which would be a massive issue if we all decided to go and live there.
• Mars gets covered in a layer of dry ice in the winter. 
• The first person to see Mars through a telescope was Galileo in 1610.
• It takes about 13 minutes for light from the sun to get to Mars - compared to 8 minutes 20 second to get to Earth.