want an exciting monday? why dont you drive out of the city with a pair of binoculars or a telescope and watch Mars at its best!

some random facts about Mars:

• Did you know that liquid water does not currently occur on Mars because of the cold temperatures and low atmospheric pressures. Only water ice and water gas (vapor) are stable. However, large channels on Mars appear to have been cut by outflows of liquid water during Mars' distant past which may have had warmer temperatures and a much thicker atmosphere.
  
  
• The largest canyon system in the Solar System is Valles Marineris on Mars. It is more than 3000 miles long and so would stretch from California to New York. In some places it reaches 3 miles in depth and 200 miles in width.
  
  
• Mars' surface area is approximately the same as the surface area of all the land (as opposed to water) on Earth. So, even though Mars is a smaller planet, studying its surface is just as large a task as studying all of Earth's land surfaces.
  
  
• Mars has two large-scale geologic regions (in addition to many smaller geologic variations within both regions). The "Southern Highlands," which cover a little more than half of Mars' surface, are composed of old (at least 3.9 billion years) densely cratered terrain. The "Northern Plains" have lower and more variable crater densities, indicating that the plains are younger and formed over a much longer period of time. The cause of this Martian geologic dichotomy is not yet agreed upon.
  
  
• The gravitational force at the surface of Mars is only about one-third as strong as the gravitational force at the surface of the Earth.
  
  
• Many of the larger rocks at the Viking Lander sites on Mars were given names. These included Toad, Badger, and Guppy, all of which were named because of some resemblance to those creatures, as well as ones named for all seven dwarfs, and the largest of the rocks near the landers was named Big Joe.
  
  
• At its closest approach to Earth, Mars appears about as big as a tennis ball viewed from a distance of one and a half miles (two and a quarter kilometers).
  
  
• The main constituent of the Martian atmosphere, carbon dioxide, actually freezes n the surface during the winter, particularly in the polar regions. This can cause global atmoshperic pressure changes. On Earth, water freezes out, but is a minor constituent in the atmosphere.