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The quadrangles appear as rectangles on maps based on a cylindrical map projection, [1] but their actual shapes on the curved surface of Mars are more complicated Saccheri quadrilaterals. The sixteen equatorial quadrangles are the smallest, with surface areas of 4,500,000 square kilometres (1,700,000 sq mi) each, while the twelve mid-latitude ...
Mars hosts many enormous extinct volcanoes (the tallest is Olympus Mons, 21.9 km or 13.6 mi tall) and one of the largest canyons in the Solar System (Valles Marineris, 4,000 km or 2,500 mi long). Geologically , the planet is fairly active with marsquakes trembling underneath the ground, dust devils sweeping across the landscape, and cirrus clouds .
Coloring of the base map indicates relative elevations, based on data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. Whites and browns indicate the highest elevations (+12 to +8 km); followed by pinks and reds (+8 to +3 km); yellow is 0 km; greens and blues are lower elevations (down to −8 km).
An 1877 map of Mars by Giovanni Schiaparelli. North is at the top of this map. In most maps of Mars drawn before space exploration the convention among astronomers was to put south at the top because the telescopic image of a planet is inverted. The first detailed observations of Mars were from ground-based telescopes.
At more than 4,000 km (2,500 mi) long, 200 km (120 mi) wide and up to 7 km (23,000 ft) deep, [3] [4] Valles Marineris is the largest canyon in the Solar System. [ 5 ] Valles Marineris is located along the equator of Mars, on the east side of the Tharsis Bulge, and stretches for nearly a quarter of the planet's circumference.
Mars has an orbit with a semimajor axis of 1.524 astronomical units (228 million km) (12.673 light minutes), and an eccentricity of 0.0934. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The planet orbits the Sun in 687 days [ 3 ] and travels 9.55 AU in doing so, [ 4 ] making the average orbital speed 24 km/s.
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Mars: Mars – fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System , after Mercury . Named after the Roman god of war , it is often referred to as the " Red Planet " [ 1 ] [ 2 ] because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish ...