The climate of Mars has been an issue of scientific curiosity for centuries, not least because Mars is the only terrestrial planet whose surface can be directly observed in detail from the Earth.
Although Mars is smaller and somewhat farther away from the Sun than the Earth, its climate has important similarities, such as the polar ice caps, seasonal changes and the observable presence of weather patterns. It has attracted sustained study from pl...
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The climate of Mars has been an issue of scientific curiosity for centuries, not least because Mars is the only terrestrial planet whose surface can be directly observed in detail from the Earth.
Although Mars is smaller and somewhat farther away from the Sun than the Earth, its climate has important similarities, such as the polar ice caps, seasonal changes and the observable presence of weather patterns. It has attracted sustained study from planetologists and climatologists. Although Mars's climate has similarities to Earth's, including seasons and periodic ice ages, there are also important differences such as the absence of liquid water (though frozen water exists) and much lower thermal inertia. Mars' atmosphere has a scale height of approximately 11 km (36,000 ft), 60% greater than that on Earth. The climate is of considerable relevance to the question of whether life is or was present on the planet, and briefly received more interest in the news due to NASA measurements...
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