Mars probably isn't very nice place to visit. There isn't a lot of air or water,and in winter it is colder than Antarctica! But the scenery is spectacular. There are mountains that are three times as Mount Everest, and canyons that are three times as deep and five times as long as the Grand canyon
Mars is only a small planet. lt is about half as big as the Earth. However scientists are very interested in it. The first spacecraft to visit Mars was Mariner 4 in 1965. Since then ,more thant thirty spacecraft have been sent to learn more about the planrt and its two small moons.
The most successful of these until now has been the usa's Phoenix,which landed on Mars on 25 May 2008. Phoenix took more than 30,000 pictures of the planet. Scientists have learned a lot about Mars from these pictures.