Mars

Mars

Mars
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 3 to 5
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	3.42

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		olympus, planet, underground, atmosphere, winds, carbon, dioxide, gravity, liquid, poles, iron, pounds, surface, weigh, caps, evidence
	content words:		Only Mercury, Because Mars, Olympus Mons

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Mars
By Cindy Grigg

¹     Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. It is 141 million miles away from the sun. It has two moons. A year on Mars is 687 Earth-days long. One day is about the same as on Earth: 24 ½ hours long.

²     Mars is about half the size of Earth. Only Mercury is smaller. Because Mars is smaller than Earth, its gravity is also less. If you weighed 100 pounds on Earth, you'd weigh about 38 pounds on Mars.

³     Mars' surface looks like a red desert. There are mountains, canyons, and craters. There are no rivers or oceans. It is a dry planet without any liquid water. It does have ice caps at the north and south poles. Some of this ice is frozen carbon dioxide. Mars has tall mountains and deep canyons. The soil is full of rust-colored iron dust. This makes Mars look red. It was named by the ancient Romans for their god of war. It is very cold on Mars. Mars has very little atmosphere. Its atmosphere is only about 1% as dense as Earth's. There is enough atmosphere to cause clouds and winds. Strong winds blow and cause big dust storms.

Paragraphs 4 to 5:
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