MARS CITY AIMars
Mars facts and every landing site
Every spacecraft that has touched down on Mars, with real coordinates from NASA, ESA and CNSA records.
Mars by the numbers
- A day on Mars, called a sol, lasts 24 hours 40 minutes.
- A year on Mars lasts 687 Earth days.
- Gravity on Mars is only about 38% of Earth’s. You could jump almost three times as high.
- The air is about 95% carbon dioxide and far thinner than on Earth, with less than 1% of Earth’s pressure.
- The average temperature is about −63 °C, but a summer day near the equator can reach 20 °C.
- Mars is about 6,800 km wide, roughly half the size of Earth.
- Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos.
- A radio message between Earth and Mars takes 3 to 22 minutes, depending on where the planets are.
Landing sites on Mars
| Mission | Agency | Landed | Place | Latitude | Longitude | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perseverance + Ingenuity Searching an ancient river delta for signs of past life and collecting rock samples to return to Earth. Its helicopter Ingenuity flew 72 times before its flights ended in 2024. | NASA | 18 Feb 2021 | Jezero Crater | 18.45°N | 77.45°E | Still working |
| Curiosity Climbing Mount Sharp and has shown that Gale once held lakes with the right chemistry for life. | NASA | 6 Aug 2012 | Gale Crater | 4.59°S | 137.44°E | Still working |
| Zhurong + Tianwen-1 China’s first Mars rover. It drove about 1.9 km, then went into hibernation and has been silent since 2022. | CNSA China | 14 May 2021 | Utopia Planitia | 25.10°N | 109.90°E | Mission ended |
| InSight Listened to marsquakes and measured the inside of Mars. The mission ended in December 2022. | NASA | 26 Nov 2018 | Elysium Planitia | 4.50°N | 135.62°E | Mission ended |
| Opportunity Planned for 90 days, it worked for almost 15 years and found minerals that formed in water. Europe’s Schiaparelli test lander crashed about 40 km away in 2016. | NASA | 25 Jan 2004 | Meridiani Planum | 1.95°S | 5.53°W | Mission ended |
| Spirit Got stuck in soft sand in 2009 and went silent in 2010. | NASA | 4 Jan 2004 | Gusev Crater | 14.57°S | 175.48°E | Mission ended |
| Pathfinder + Sojourner Sojourner, about the size of a microwave oven, was the first rover to drive on Mars. | NASA | 4 Jul 1997 | Ares Vallis | 19.33°N | 33.55°W | Mission ended |
| Viking 1 The first long-lived Mars lander. It sent pictures and weather data until 1982. | NASA | 20 Jul 1976 | Chryse Planitia | 22.70°N | 48.22°W | Mission ended |
| Viking 2 Twin of Viking 1. It photographed frost on the ground and worked until 1980. | NASA | 3 Sep 1976 | Utopia Planitia | 48.27°N | 134.01°E | Mission ended |
| Phoenix Dug into the northern plains and confirmed that water ice lies just under the surface. | NASA | 25 May 2008 | Vastitas Borealis | 68.22°N | 125.70°W | Mission ended |
| Beagle 2 Landed, but a solar panel did not open fully and it never called home. Orbiter photos found it in 2015. | ESA · UK | Dec 2003 | Isidis Planitia | 11.53°N | 90.43°E | Lost on landing |
| Mars 3 The first soft landing on Mars. Its signal stopped after about 110 seconds. | USSR | 2 Dec 1971 | Sirenum Terra (estimated) | 45.00°S | 158.00°W | Lost on landing |
Landmarks
- Olympus Mons (18.65°N, 133.80°W): The biggest volcano known in the solar system, roughly 22 km high, about two and a half times the height of Everest.
- Valles Marineris (14.00°S, 59.00°W): A canyon system about 4,000 km long and up to 7 km deep. It would stretch across the whole of the United States.
- Hellas Planitia (42.40°S, 70.50°E): One of the largest impact basins in the solar system, about 2,300 km wide and 7 km deep.
Sources: NASA, ESA and CNSA mission records; Wikipedia, List of artificial objects on Mars. The position of Mars 3 is an estimate.
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