Exploratour - Comparing the Surfaces of Earth and Mars

Mars is about 1/3 the size of the Earth, as shown in this drawing.
NASA

This page is the start of the tour which compares the surfaces of Earth and Mars. In this tour we will describe and compare some features of the surfaces of both Earth and Mars. Use the navigation button at the top right of the page to move through the tour. To go to the next page, just press the forward link on the navigation button.

Mars is much smaller than the Earth, with a diameter 53% as large as Earth and a mass of about 11% that of our planet. It has no oceans, trees or other visible forms of life on the surface. We will show in this tour, however, that Mars has many of the biggest things in the solar system - the biggest volcano, the deepest chasm, and the biggest canyon.


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Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA