With climate change getting worse day by day, scientists have turned to some other potential solutions in case Earth can’t be saved. One such solution is colonizing other planets. The planet that we are most likely to be able to colonize is Mars, but right now it is a very hostile environment, with very low temperatures. What is the warmest place on Mars?
The warmest place on Mars is the area of its equator. The temperature measured there was 95 degrees F.
The average temperature of Mars is minus 80 degrees F. The temperatures fluctuate extremely. They go as high as 70 degrees F to as low as minus 220 degrees F.
Keep reading to find out how scientists believe they can use the temperature of Mars to allow Earth organisms to metabolize and even reproduce.
Mars-The Red Planet
It is hard to credit someone with the discovery of Mars, as it has been observed by many different cultures from around the world for hundreds of years. The observations of Mars date back to ancient Egyptian astronomers in the 2nd millennium BCE. Even Babilons made detailed observations. They developed arithmetic techniques that helped them predict the future position of the planet while the ancient Greeks developed a geocentric model to explain the planet’s motions.
Ancient Romans made Mars the symbol of blood and war, the equivalent of the Greek god of war Ares.
Nicolaus Copernicus came up with a heliocentric model for the Solar System in which the planets follow circular orbits around the Sun in the 16th century. Johannes Kepler tweaked this creation by yielding an elliptic orbit for Mars that more accurately fit the observational data. In the 17th century, Galileo Galilei first observed Mars with a telescope. In the next century, astronomers discovered several features of Mars and determined the planet’s rotational period and axial tilt.
Some believe that the Solar System formed from a giant rotating ball of gas and dust which was known as the pre-solar nebula. Most of it formed the Sun, while the rest went on and merged to create the first proto-planets. Mars was one of these proto-planets, and once the gravity pulled enough swirling gas and dust, it became the fourth planet from the Sun.
Mars completes one rotation, or a day, in 24.6 hours, and it completes one whole trip around the Sun, or a year, in 669.6 days.
The axis of rotation of Mars is tilted 25.2 degrees, which is similar to that of Earth, which has an axial tilt of 23.4 degrees. The seasons on Mars last longer than Earth because it takes longer for Mars to orbit the Sun. Another reason why Mars has longer seasons is because of its elliptical, egg-shaped orbit around the Sun.
It is believed that Mars lost its magnetosphere around 4 billion years ago. One of the reasons why that happened could be because of numerous asteroid strikes and the solar wind interacting directly with the Martian ionosphere, which lowered the atmospheric density by stripping away atoms from the outer layer. Mars’ atmosphere consists of about 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon, and 1.89% nitrogen, along with traces of oxygen and water.
Even though Mars is two times smaller than Earth, its surface is the same size as Earth’s drylands combined.
There is some evidence that Mars had water in the past, for example, river valley networks, deltas, and lake beds, as well as rocks and minerals on the surface that could only have formed in liquid water.
Mars has 2 known moons and they are named Phobos and Deimos after the horses that pulled the chariot of the god of war Mars. Because they look like asteroids it is strongly believed that they have been captured by Mars gravity from the nearby asteroid belt.
Landforms have been found that strongly suggest that liquid water has existed on the planet’s surface. Mars has 2 permanent polar ice caps. These ice caps lay in continuous darkness during the winter, which causes depositions of 25-30% of the atmosphere into slabs of carbon dioxide dry ice. Once they are exposed to the sunlight again, the carbon dioxide sublimes and sometimes creates water-ice clouds.
Mars has about 43,000 craters. The largest confirmed crater is the Hellas impact basin, a light albedo feature that is clearly visible from Earth. The largest volcano detected in the Solar System is the volcano Olympus Mons was found in the vast upland region Tharsis on Mars.
What is the warmest place on Mars?
Mars is about 143 million miles from the Sun. In an attempt to find out more about Mars, NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory in November 2011. Among the data it collected were temperature readings. It was found that in the area that Curiosity investigated, ground temperatures varied from day to night, with a high temperature at just under 37 degrees Fahrenheit to a low of minus 131.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mars was once probably as warm and wet as Earth. Formations of carbonate rock used up much of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that held heat in. That made Mars’ atmosphere much thinner, and that’s why the temperatures are significantly lower.
The warmest place on Mars is its equator, and it doesn’t get warmer than about 70 degrees Fahrenheit at noon during the summer.
What is the highest recorded temperature on Mars?
Mars has a very thin atmosphere. It is approximately 100 times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere. Because of its lack of atmosphere, Mars can’t retain any heat energy. That is why, on average, the temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. During the winter, near the poles temperatures can get down to minus 195 degrees F. During the summer, the temperature can get up to 70 degrees F near the equator, but at night it can lower to minus 100 degrees F.
During the night, frost forms on the rocks. As the dawn approaches and the air gets warmer, that frost turns into vapor. There is 100 percent humidity until it evaporates. This high humidity could be very helpful in making Mars more habitable.
This humidity is tied to temperature fluctuations. During the night, humidity levels can rise to 80 or 100 percent, with the air sometimes reaching atmospheric saturation. Because of the warmer temperature, the day is usually drier than the night.
Some forms of life living on Earth are able to live off of water from the humid air. One of them is lichens dominate, which manages to survive in arid climates without succumbing to the dry spells that frequently occur. It has been discovered that some lichens that live in super-dry areas have been found to photosynthesize at relative humidity levels as low as 70 percent. These short-term wet periods just might be long enough and warm enough to allow for Earth organisms to metabolize and potentially even reproduce.
Similar to Earth, Mars has 4 seasons because the planet tilts on its axis. These seasons vary in length because of Mars’ eccentric orbit around the sun. The spring is the longest in the northern hemisphere, and it lasts 7 months. Summer and fall are both about 6 months long, and winter is 4 months long.
During the summer the polar ice cap, which is mainly made out of carbon dioxide ice, shrinks and may disappear altogether. Once the winter comes, the ice cap grows back.
The highest temperature ever recorded on Mars was 95 degrees F, and it was recorded by the Spirit Rover between 2004 and 2007. This was recorded around midday during summer, 15° South of the equator in the Martian equivalent of the Southern African Kalahari Desert, in the place where the surface receives the most direct solar radiation.
What is the temperature on the surface of Mars?
Mars is considered to be very cold, with an average temperature minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That being said, temperatures range from around minus 220 degrees F. in the wintertime at the poles, to 70 degrees F over the lower latitudes in the summer.