Getting Ready for our Mars Holiday - by Jane & Jack

Tomorrow we are going on a holiday to Mars. We're all really excited cause we'll be the first humans ever to go there.

We have to plan our take off from Earth exactly to meet up with Mars, and tomorrow is the day! To see how hard that is you can try this game.

Jack says it will be pretty cold on Mars. He say's Mars' average temparature is about -65 degrees Celsius and that's about as cold as it gets in Antarctica in winter.

We're not worried because we are going to pack warm clothes and jumpers (see picture of our packing) and have spacesuits like astronaunts wear.

Because the trip will take a long time we are also going to pack our iPods, ear plugs and lots of food for snacks too. Our teacher Mrs Morgan gave us a link to the online 'Voyage to the Planets Guidebook' and we have all downloaded the Mars sections to our iPods too. We'll probably read this on the way there. Click on this is the link if you want to read the Guidebook and see where we're going!!!

(Reference: Image from http://www.physicschick.com/pole/20080117/05_clothes.jpg)

Our Journey to Mars - by Jane, Jack, John, Jill

We're on the spaceship now. The take off was amazing! It felt like being on a massive rollercoster that just kept going and going. Now we are in space and we are floating around the spaceship. We don't have to wear seatbelts or anything.

The trip to Mars from Earth is about 70,300,000km! That's like flying around the world 1,750 times!!! It will take us about 7 months to get to Mars in our spaceship.









Here is a picture of Mars from our spaceship. It looks awesome!!!

We haven't passed any planets on the way to Mars as Mars is next to the Earth.

The landing was a bit bumpy, but a camera on the spaceship filmed the whole thing and you can see it if you click here. It also shows all the instruments on our spaceship. Our spaceship is the same one as the Phoenix Mars Lander that went to Mars in 2008.

(Reference/Sources: http://gkbsolarsystem.wikispaces.com/file/view/mars_face_and_north_ice.jpg/115151131/mars_face_and_north_ice.jpg
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=930_1211619917)

On the Planet Mars - by Jill, Jane & John

It didn't take us long to get out of the spaceship and onto planet Mars! We're the first people that have ever been here.

The first thing we noticed on the planet was that we felt so light. On Mars things weigh less than on Earth. John says on Earth he weighs 50kg, but on Mars he only weighs 20kg. It's because the gravity pulling him to the ground is less on Mars than the gravity on Earth. The coollest thing is that we can jump really high.

We have two main tourist attractions to see on Mars. They are a huge volcano called Olympus Mons and a huge canyon called Valles Marineris.

Olympus Mons

Here is a picture Jane took of the giant volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons. It is the biggest volcano in the whole solar system.

The volcano is:
* 25km high (that's 3 times as high as Mt Everest)
*700km wide at the base (that's about as big as all of NSW!)

Valles Marineris
Here is a picture John took of the giant canyon called Valles Marineris. It is the biggest canyon in our solar system.

The canyon is:
* 4000 km long (that's as twice as long as Australia),
* 500 km wide (that's twice as wide as Tasmania),
* 7 km deep (that's nearly as high as Mt Everest).

The day on Mars take about 24 hours which is the same as on Earth. But the years take 687 Earth Days which is about twice as long as a year on Earth.

(References/Image Sources:
http://fisica.cab.cnea.gov.ar/estadistica/abramson/celestia/gallery/slides/Valles%20marineris%202.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEv5PrtzyfFizYdz1dlYk3-m-4vEFm4jNDTAFnWhv3v_aS8OWdU31IQNmVp4Ku4MvE6cKR8HotS1LN0EJvmCdhp5UNYYayw8xKnZjtxJYf3CNNrsMLjnMLUCcV4at6twXGsgjGCyG78cs/s1600/OlympusMons01v01.jpg
http://www.marsquestonline.org/index.html)