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Artistic Rendering Of Mars
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Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye. Its apparent magnitude reaches −3.0 a brightness surpassed only by Venus, Jupiter, the Moon, and the Sun.
Physical characteristics
Mars has approximately half the radius of Earth. It is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of the mass. Its surface area is only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land. While Mars is larger and more massive than Mercury, Mercury has a higher density. This results in the two planets having a nearly identical gravitational pull at the surface—that of Mars is stronger by less than 1%. Mars is also roughly intermediate in size, mass, and surface gravity between Earth and Earth's Moon (the Moon is about half the diameter of Mars, whereas Earth is twice; the Earth is about nine times more massive than Mars, and the Moon one-ninth as massive). The red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron(III) oxide, more commonly known as hematite, or rust.
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