Mars: The Rusty Planet With Potato Moons and Blue Sunsets

Nova: Buckle up, Explorers.

Cosmo: Brains in!

Nova: Wheels up!

Nova & Cosmo: Brain Bus, let's GO!

Nova: You're on The Brain Bus - I'm Nova, your driver, and today Cosmo and I are taking you somewhere extraordinary.

Cosmo: That's me! Cosmo! Robot co-pilot, galaxy brain genius, and I have been WAITING for this one.

Nova: Right now, Explorers - wherever your car is rolling - I want you to think about jumping. A big, huge, springy jump. Ready? Because on Mars, that same jump would send you almost THREE TIMES higher. Like you suddenly grew superhero legs!

Cosmo: I've been practicing my jumps. I've been ready for Mars this whole time.

Nova: The Brain Bus is taking us there right now. Buckle in - we're heading to the Red Planet.

Nova: Okay, Explorers - here's your first big Mars mystery. Mars looks red. Blazing, fire-engine, rusty red. So Cosmo - what do you think? Hot planet or cold planet?

Cosmo: Oh, easy. Obviously hot. It's RED, Nova. Red means fire. Red means hot. The whole planet is basically a giant campfire, and I would like a marshmallow.

Nova: Hmm. That sounds very logical. It is also completely wrong.

Cosmo: It - what?

Nova: Mars is actually freezing cold. Like, way colder than the coldest freezer in your kitchen - colder than Antarctica in winter. Because Mars is much farther from the Sun than we are, and not much warmth gets all the way out there.

Cosmo: But it's SO RED.

Nova: That red isn't fire at all, Cosmo. It's rust. The whole planet is covered in rust - the exact same orange-brown stuff that creeps onto an old bike or a swing set when someone leaves it out in the rain too long. Mars has iron in its dirt, and that iron slowly, slowly, slowly went rusty. Every single bit of it.

Cosmo: The entire planet. Rusty.

Nova: The entire planet. Rusty. A frozen, rusty world - which, if you ask me, is way more interesting than a campfire.

Cosmo: I mean. Yeah, okay. That IS more interesting.

Nova: Now. I mentioned those two moons up above us - Phobos and Deimos. Cosmo, tell the Explorers what you know about them.

Cosmo: YES. Okay. So. Mars has TWO moons, right? And I have looked at them very carefully in my Space Guidebook. They are small, they are round, they orbit up there - and Mars keeps them as orbiting pet snacks. Two roast potatoes, just floating around up above us. Phobos is the bigger tater tot. Deimos is the smaller tater tot.

Nova: The tater tot moons. Cosmo, they actually ARE shaped like lumpy potatoes - you got that part right! Phobos and Deimos are small and lumpy because their gravity is too weak to squish them into a smooth ball like our big round Moon. So you're actually not that far off.

Cosmo: THE TATER TOT MOONS ARE REAL. I knew it. I always knew it.

Nova: Named after the sons of the Roman god of war - Mars himself. The Romans named this whole planet after their warrior god because that red color reminded them of battle. Although for ages 5 to 7, we'll say he was more of a very brave warrior. And speaking of names - historians think ancient Egyptians called Mars Her Desher - that's their best reconstruction of how it sounded - meaning "the Red One." And ancient Chinese astronomers called it Huoxing, meaning "the Fire Star." People all over the world, thousands of years ago, looked up and noticed that same blazing red light in the sky.

Cosmo: Everyone was thinking about it. Including me. Just now. And also always.

Nova: Now let's talk about the volcano.

Cosmo: Oh yes. Yes yes yes.

Nova: Mars has the biggest volcano in the entire solar system. It's called Olympus Mons - that means "Mount Olympus" in Latin. And it is about two and a half times taller than Mount Everest, which is the tallest mountain on our whole Earth. How does one volcano get THAT enormous? Because Mars's surface doesn't shift and move around the way Earth's does. So lava just kept pouring out of the exact same spot for millions and millions of years, stacking up and up and up into one absolutely gigantic mountain.

Cosmo: I am choosing to believe it is also covered in cinnamon sugar. Like a planet-sized churro situation.

Nova: Cosmo, it is covered in rust-red rock and ancient lava.

Cosmo: A RUSTY CHURRO. Even better.

Nova: And then there are the dust storms. Mars gets storms so enormous they can wrap around the entire planet for weeks. Not a little sandstorm - the whole planet, hidden inside a swirling orange cloud.

Nova: And now I want you to just sit with something for a moment, Explorers.

Nova: Think about your old bike. Or a garden gate. Or a swing set that's been rained on, over and over, for years and years - and the way it slowly turns orange-brown. That's rust. And on Mars - the same thing happened. Across an entire world. Every grain of dirt. Every stone. Every hill. All of it, slowly, quietly, turning the same rusty orange over billions of years. That's why Mars is red. It's the oldest rust in the solar system, and it's just been sitting there, waiting for us to notice.

Nova: Right now, real robots are driving across all that rust, taking pictures and scooping up samples of the dirt. A little rover, rolling slowly through the silence. And a tiny helicopter called Ingenuity - no bigger than a small dog - became the first flying machine ever to fly on another planet. Its blades had to spin incredibly fast because Mars's air is very thin, much thinner than ours. Scientists watch those robots carefully from here on Earth, and the signals bounce off giant dish antennas near Canberra, at a place called Tidbinbilla - that's tid-bin-BIL-uh - in Australia, catching every photo and every message that comes back.

Cosmo: Robots doing the exploring first. Smart. Robots don't need snacks.

Nova: They do not need snacks.

Cosmo: I need snacks.

Nova: One more thing before we hit the quiz, Explorers. The sunsets on Mars. On Earth, our sunsets go orange and pink and gold. But on Mars - the sunset turns blue. The dust floating in Mars's thin air bends the light differently to ours, so the glow around the setting Sun comes out this soft, glowing blue. A blue sunset on a rusty red planet, with two potato moons drifting overhead.

Cosmo: Okay, that's actually the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

Nova: Me too, Cosmo. Me too.

Cosmo: QUIZ TIME! I, Cosmo, galaxy brain genius, will be asking the questions. Shout your answers out - there's no getting it wrong, only getting it THOUGHT!

Cosmo: Question one! True or False - Mars is red because it's covered in rust.

Nova: TRUE! The whole planet is rusty - iron in the dirt has been slowly turning orange for billions of years. Just like an old bike in the rain, but planet-sized.

Cosmo: Question two! True or False - Mars is a hot, fiery planet because it's red.

Cosmo: FALSE! Red doesn't mean hot. Mars is freezing cold because it sits so much farther from the Sun than we do. Color is a trick!

Nova: Question three - and this one is brilliant. True or False: a real helicopter has actually flown in the sky on Mars.

Cosmo: TRUE! Little Ingenuity, spinning its blades super fast through that thin air. First flying machine on another planet. A robot helicopter. On MARS.

Nova: Every single one of you just did something brilliant, Explorers. You thought hard, you shouted your answers, and that is exactly what explorers do. Well done, all of you.

Nova: Four fast facts - brand new ones, things we haven't even mentioned yet. GO!

Cosmo: Fact one - the month of March is named after Mars! The Romans named March after their warrior god, the same one the planet is named after. So every single March, you say the planet's name about thirty times and probably don't even notice.

Nova: Fact two - some of the ice at the very top and bottom of Mars isn't frozen water. It's frozen air. Scientists call it dry ice - that means carbon dioxide gas that has frozen solid. It's the same stuff that makes the fizzy bubbles in soda.

Cosmo: Fact three - if you jumped on Mars, you'd go up in beautiful slow motion, because Mars pulls you back down much more gently than Earth does. One big leap and you'd be floating up, up, up - almost three times higher than your biggest jump here.

Nova: And fact four - Mars's dust storms are so powerful and so enormous they can completely hide the planet. If you were looking at Mars through a telescope during a big storm, you'd just see a hazy orange blob where the whole planet should be.

Cosmo: Vanished. Hidden inside its own weather.

Nova: Okay, Explorers - it is time for your mission. Right now, from your seat, you are a Mars rover. You've got your own rover name - shout it in your head, or out loud if you want.

Nova: Ready? Mission begins. Step one - hum your quietest engine noise as you slowly, carefully start rolling across the red dust.

Nova: Step two - slowly look left. Scanning for a rock.

Nova: Slowly look right. Any interesting rocks over there?

Nova: Step three - reach one arm out in super slow motion and pretend to scoop up a sample of rusty Martian dirt. Careful. Careful. Got it.

Nova: Step four - make your camera sound.

Cosmo: Click!

Nova: Photo taken. Mission accomplished, rover. You just explored Mars.

Nova: Here's the wondering question for everyone in the car - grown-ups too. If you could send just ONE photo back from Mars, what would you take a picture of? And why?

Nova: Take your time with that one. There's no right answer - just your answer.

Nova: Before we go, Explorers, the Brain Bus has one last thing for you. A riddle. Put your thinking caps on.

Nova: I cover more than half the Earth.

Nova: I hold the biggest animals that have ever lived.

Nova: I am full of creatures that glow in the dark, and mountains taller than anything on land - they're just hidden underneath me.

Nova: What am I?

Nova: Hmm. Have you got a guess fizzing around in your brain? Hold onto it. Because we are NOT telling you the answer today.

Cosmo: Not telling. Nope. Top secret.

Nova: You'll find out on your next Brain Bus journey. Keep wondering about it until then.

Cosmo: Before we phase back - Nova, I want to say: Mars is officially my favourite rusty churro in the solar system.

Nova: High praise, Cosmo. High praise.

Cosmo: I stand by it.

Nova: Explorers, you have been absolutely brilliant today. You found out why Mars is red - rust, the same as an old bike - you met the tater tot moons, you rode out a dust storm, you saw a blue sunset, and you went on a rover mission. Not bad for one car journey.

Nova: Stay curious, stay clever, and keep that brain working!

Nova: Until the next stop, Explorers...

Cosmo: ...keep wondering.