Travel Advice
Q: I am planning a trip to Mars. Can you please tell me what kind of weather
to expect?
A: You certainly do plan ahead. The first human visit is not expected to take place before 2019. As for the weather, it's cold. On average, Mars is about 50 percent farther away from the Sun than the Earth is. What's more, its very thin atmosphere cools off rapidly at night. Although it can get as hot as 22 degrees C (72 degrees F) at the equator in
summer, temperatures below freezing are more typical. In winter, the thermometer may dip as low as -125 degrees C (-194 degrees F). The atmospheric pressure is less than 1% of Earth's and there's no oxygen. So you'll need a spacesuit.
It's also very windy. Expect winds exceeding 160 kilometers (100 miles) per hour. Blinding dust storms, which sometimes last for months, can make travel and sightseeing a challenge. But you don't have to worry about rain. Although it is often cloudy in low-lying areas in the morning, the haze burns off during the day. If Mars resembles any place on Earth, it would be the dry valleys of Antarctica.
One last word: Although you won't need an umbrella, you will need sunglasses and sunscreen, the most powerful you can find. The Martian atmosphere has no ozone layer to protect the surface from the Sun's ultraviolet rays.
Q: I am going to Mars for a month. What sites should I be sure to see while I'm there?
A: Mars is a fabulous place, with dramatic landscapes and geological formations on a grander scale than any known on Earth. Although Mars is smaller than our home planet, its surface area is about the same as the dry land area of Earth. Remember, over two thirds of the Earth's surface are covered by oceans, whereas Mars has no liquid water on its surface at all.
There's so much to see on Mars that it's hard to single out just a few sights. Top on our list, however, would be a trip to Tharsis Province, an area about the size of the United States in the Martian northern hemisphere. There you'll find Mount Olympus
(Olympus Mons), a stupendous extinct volcano surrounded by sheer cliffs. The summit is 27 kilometers (nearly 17 miles) above the planet's baseline surface elevation. That's three times higher than Mount Everest is above sea level.
If you like volcanoes, Tharsis is a great place to visit. East of Olympus, you'll find Ceraunius Tholus, a smallish volcano that appears to be the youngest on the planet. And to the southeast is a line of three enormous craters: Arsia, Pavonis, and Ascraeus. All of the Martian volcanoes are now extinct, but they were active at a time, deep in the planet's past, when the planet's surface was warmer, and there was liquid water and possibly even life.
Nearby are the Mariner Valleys (Valles Marineris), a system of canyons that stretches 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) eastward, dwarfing Earth's Grand Canyon. No whitewater rafting here, though. In fact, there is no running water at all on Mars. Unlike the Grand Canyon, the Mariner Valleys were not cut by a great river. They were made by tectonic forces from inside the planet, which stretched and cracked the surface. There were apparently meandering rivers on Mars at one time, though, andyou might see some dry riverbeds formed from flowing water long ago.
If you have time to visit one of the poles, try to go when it is summer there. That's your best chance to see the water ice cap, which is hidden beneath the dry ice cap at other times of the year. In the warmer weather, the dry ice cap shrinks, as the frozen carbon dioxide changes to gas, exposing the water ice beneath it. For reasons no one yet understands, more dry ice remains at the warmer south pole than at the colder north one. Perhaps you'll be able to find out why if you go there.
The good news is that if you can stay an entire Martian year, you'll have 687 days to explore the planet. The bad news is that you might find it hard to get around. The only vehicle on the planet is the rover Sojourner, which is about the size of a microwave oven and travels at about 24 meters (80 feet) per hour.
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