1,000,000s of miles away...

WRONG

the face on Mars does exist!

the red planet is the fourth planet from the Sun; it is named for the Roman god of war. Easily distinguished in the night sky by its reddish appearance, it is 1.5 times farther from the Sun than the Earth and only about half as large as the Earth. More than any other planet in the solar system, Mars has characteristics that make it an Earth-like world. Its period of rotation and the inclination of its axis are similar to Earth's. Its density indicates that it is made of rocky materials, although with proportionately less iron and more lightweight elements and volatiles than the Earth. Its atmosphere is thin enough to allow observation of the surface. Only the Earth and Mars among the terrestrial planets have satellites; the two very tiny bodies orbiting Mars were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall and named PHOBOS and DEIMOS. The rotation period of Mars is only 37 minutes longer than the Earth's, a fact already determined in the late 1600s by watching the motion of surface features. The rotation axis is tilted with respect to the orbital plane by almost 24 deg, so that both planets experience significant seasonal differences in the amount of sunlight falling on a given hemisphere during the year. The difference between winter and summer is more extreme on Mars, due to the greater eccentricity of the martian orbit. The distance of Mars from the Sun ranges from 206.7 million km (128.4 million mi) at perihelion to 249.1 million km (154.7 million mi) at aphelion, a difference of 42.4 million km (26.3 million mi). By contrast, the Earth's distance from the Sun changes by only about 2.5 million km (1.6 million mi). The red planet therefore receives about 40 percent more sunlight during southern summer, when nearest the Sun, than during southern winter, when the Sun is most distant. These conditions produce relatively hot southern summers and mild northern winters but cool northern summers and cold southern winters.

Email: faceonmars@hotmail.com