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Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the last of the Inner Planets. Named after the Roman God of War because of its blood red colour, Mars completes an orbit of the Sun (a year) every 688 Earth days. This small planet spins relatively quickly on its axis, taking slightly longer than Earth to complete a day. A Martian day is 24 hours and 37 minutes long, compared to the 23 hours and 56 minutes of an Earth day. Everything on Mars - its soil, rocks and sky - looks red or pink, as you can see in the picture below taken by Pathfinder in 1997.
Astronomers have been observing Mars for centuries. Early astronomers thought that they could see canals on Mars' surface, leading to beliefs that the planet was home to an advanced civilisation. However, recent missions to explore Mars have found it to be a dry, dusty planet with weather that changes seasonally. The planet also has the largest volcano in the Solar System, a huge valley, and channels which confirm the belief that water did once flow freely on the planet. But, life has not yet been discovered, although strange "Martian creations" have, such as a sculpture of a "face" on the planet's surface!
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