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Why is Mars red? |
Space
By looking at pictures of Mars, you’ve probably noticed that it’s not at all the same green-and-blue colors as Earth… it’s red! But if you dug a big, deep tunnel somewhere on the planet, you would find that it wasn’t actually red going all the way down! Mars is only red on its surface – the first few inches or sometimes feet.
The red color of Mars comes from all of the iron in its soil and dust. When iron (like a metal object) gets wet, a chemical reaction happens and the metal gets red and rusty. Because of this, some scientists think that once upon a time, Mars was covered in water! The red dust, then, would be due to all of the iron in Mars’ soil getting wet and turning rusty!
But other scientists don’t think that Mars was ever covered in water. Some say that the red iron colors might be from meteorites (sort of like rocks in space) that were already covered in red iron before they crash landed on Mars and dusted the whole planet in their reddish color!
The red color of Mars comes from all of the iron in its soil and dust. When iron (like a metal object) gets wet, a chemical reaction happens and the metal gets red and rusty. Because of this, some scientists think that once upon a time, Mars was covered in water! The red dust, then, would be due to all of the iron in Mars’ soil getting wet and turning rusty!
But other scientists don’t think that Mars was ever covered in water. Some say that the red iron colors might be from meteorites (sort of like rocks in space) that were already covered in red iron before they crash landed on Mars and dusted the whole planet in their reddish color!
Coloring Book!
What are some other interesting things you’ve learned about that have very specific colors? For example, do you know why the sky is blue, or why leaves are green??
Why do you think the universe has so many things with different colors? What would be different or difficult about having less color variety?
